Perfect Final Four bracket: 440,000 to 1 chance proved possible by Hartford woman

HARTFORD, Conn. (WFSB) - As Husky Nation celebrated the big win, a Hartford woman had her own victory to celebrate.

Not only did Erin Sheehan correctly predict UConn would win the Championship, she guessed the Final Four teams right too.

“Every year, my husband asked me to fill out a bracket and every year I don’t,” Sheehan said.

Even as the wife to a sports radio producer, Sheehan doesn’t usually get into the NCAA basketball craze.

“I did it the day of the first game,” said Sheehan.

She hastily filled out her second bracket ever as part of her husband’s friendly workplace competition.

As a voiceover artist, she picked the Final Four teams for the college championship by relying on her own institutional knowledge

“I’ve been on radio stations in Tampa, San Diego, Miami, and Hartford, so I kind of did my knowledge of the areas and places that I lived,” said Sheehan.

Erin called it right and caught the Final Four fever along with everyone else.

Sheehan said, “I was glued to the television; I became a huge basketball fan it’s been a lot of fun.”

To get an accurate determination of Sheehan’s odds picking the exact Final Four teams, mathematics professor at Quinnipiac University Corneilus Nelan looked over the numbers.

Nelan said that while the odds of picking a perfect bracket were very slim especially if when looking at each team’s chances of making it to Houston individually.

“UConn had a 20 to 1 chance of making it to the Final Four, Miami had a 25 to 1 chance, San Diego State they said 11 to 1, and Florida Atlantic they had an 80 to 1 chance,” said Nelan. “They were the longshots.”

Altogether, the chance of picking the Final Four group was not entirely impossible but difficult according to the math.

“Pick these four teams, I figure that’s about 440,000 to 1,” said Nelan.

Sheehan’s bracket wasn’t spot-on but so “close enough” described her distance to a slam dunk perfectly in more ways than one.

Sheehan said, “I think if we had taken it more seriously, we would’ve put $100 bet on it.”

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