RIP To The Last Remaining Perfect Bracket That Was Killed By Purdue, Let’s Remember How Historic The Bracket Was

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The last remaining perfect bracket was murdered by a questionable call at the end of the Purdue/Tennessee game that helped Purdue advance to its first Elite 8 since American Beauty won Best Picture.

40-year-old neuropsychologist Gregg Nigl correctly guessed the outcome of the first 49 games of the NCAA tournament, blowing the previous record of 39 straight games out of the water that was entered in 2017. He’s the first person ever to have a perfect bracket through 2 rounds of the men’s NCAA basketball tournament.

To put Gregg’s feat in perspective, if every game were a coin toss, the odds of predicting 49 in a row are 1 in 562,949,953,421,312. That’s 562 trillion. Or the odds of Ben Simmons converting on a three-pointer. Unnecessary low blow, I know.

The NCAA contacted Nigl on Monday and the dude had no idea he still had a perfect bracket:

“So wait, you’re saying I’m the first person to have ever done this?” Nigl asked when we told him the news. “This is wild. I can’t even believe it.

“I had no idea that this was even happening.”

To add insult to injury, Gregg’s loss had dropped him to 348th place in the standings.

But, but, it was so pretty.

https://twitter.com/GreggNigl/status/1110915150444482561

Matt Keohan Avatar
Matt’s love of writing was born during a sixth grade assembly when it was announced that his essay titled “Why Drugs Are Bad” had taken first prize in D.A.R.E.’s grade-wide contest. The anti-drug people gave him a $50 savings bond for his brave contribution to crime-fighting, and upon the bond’s maturity 10 years later, he used it to buy his very first bag of marijuana.