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There's only one person left that has a perfect NCAA tournament bracket

Posted at 12:28 PM, Mar 26, 2019
and last updated 2019-03-26 15:29:44-04

A Columbus, Ohio man's NCAA tournament bracket is the last remaining perfect bracket out of tens of millions filled out this year.

Gregg Nigl, 40, is 48-for-48, correctly predicating every single game through the first two rounds of the tournament. The odds of having a perfect bracket through two rounds are about 1 in 281 trillion.

The longest streak the NCAA has seen on its official brackets has been 39 games in a row, according to the organization's website.

When Nigl, a neuropsychologist, first spoke to NCAA.com writers this week, he didn’t even realize his bracket was perfect.

This seems kind of unreal. How do I know that this is, you know, real?” he asked.

The writer told Nigl to go to the NCAA's website. He did, and found his bracket, named “center road” was on the front page.

Nigl told NCAA.com about his strategy for filling out brackets.

“I always watch Bracketology, I listen to them, take into account what they say,” he said. “And then, honestly, sometimes it’s which teams I like better. Some cities I like better, some teams I like better, some coaches I like better. I do look at the rankings too. It’s a combination of things. Don’t get me wrong, a bunch of this is luck. I know that. I’m not going to say I knew every matchup by any means.”

Fifteen games remain in the tournament. If Nigl somehow continues his perfect streak, he will have beaten insurmountable odds. The odds of perfectly guessing every game in a bracket are roughly 1 in 9.2 quintillion.

So how does Nigl have the rest of the tournament playing out?

“I have Tennessee and Gonzaga (in the national championship) and then I pick Gonzaga to win it all,” Nigl told Good Morning America. “I'm pretty sure it's not going to remain perfect but if I go wrong, I hope Michigan goes further than I have them.”