That perfect NCAA Tournament bracket streak has come to an end. This is how it happened
The streak is over.
Let the record show that Gregg Nigl of Columbus, Ohio, correctly picked the first 49 games of the NCAA Tournament, but predicted Tennessee would beat Purdue in the Sweet 16 on Thursday night. Instead, the Boilermakers won 99-94 in overtime.
Nigl, whose user name was “Center Road” on the NCAA’s Tournament Challenge game, shattered the old record for consecutive picks of 36.
He became a media darling this week, appearing on “Good Morning America” and “The Today Show,” and Buick flew him to Anaheim to watch Michigan, which is his favorite team.
After correctly picking all 48 games in the first two rounds, Nigl started the Sweet 16 in fine fashion as Gonzaga knocked off Florida State as he predicted. However, Tennessee’s loss put an end to the remarkable streak.
For a little context, ESPN reported that 66.4 percent of its 17.2 million brackets had the very first game of the Tournament picked wrong: No. 10-seed Minnesota’s upset of No. 7 Louisville.
The New York Times noted that a person who picked all 63 games at random, the odds of getting them all right are nine quintillion to one.
So while this update shows Nigl finally got a game wrong, it is still going in the record book.
This story was originally published March 28, 2019 at 9:09 PM.
