Posted on 03/23/2010 9:51:54 PM PDT by nickcarraway
He studied all season for the tourney
An autistic teenager from the Chicago area has done something almost impossible.
Nearly 48 games into an upset-filled NCAA tournament, 17-year-old Alex Hermann is perfect.
"It's amazing," he says. Truly.
The teenager predicted that Northern Iowa would beat the Kansas Jayhawks. He picked Ohio to knock off Georgetown. And Cornell to knock off Wisconsin.
In fact, he picked every game through the first two rounds correctly. The odds of anybody doing that? One in 13,460,000, according to BookofOdds.com. It's easier to win the lottery. Twice.
"I'm good at math," Alex, a Glenbrook South High School student, said. "I'm kind of good at math and at stats I see on TV during the game."
Alex entered the bracket on CBSsports.com's bracket challenge. His 24-year-old brother Andrew, who helped him enter his picks into CBS' bracket manager, also entered the contest -- and ranks behind 500,000 other people. “My bracket is totally shot,” hist 24-year-old brother Andrew said. “So is everyone else I know.”
ESPN estimates around 4.78 million played in their bracket challenge, but no one picked all the games correctly. The leader at ESPN’s bracket has already missed four games.
But Alex Hermann's miraculous bracket is still a picture of perfection.
Andrew is still shocked --- after looking it over for the umpteenth time, he told his mother to alert the media. "I checked his bracket and it was off the chart," Andrew said. "I thought it was a big deal."
Alex doesn't get anything for perfection. He entered one of three bracket games offered by CBS -- the only one without a prize attached.
Alex’s basketball knowledge could have been worth a fortune. One of the other CBS games offers a prize of $5,000 per round. Other sites offer even more money -- Yahoo offers $1 million for a perfect bracket; SportsBook.com offers $13 million.
“If he would have won any money he would have just saved it,” his mother Diane said. "He's a big saver."
CBSSports.com can not confirm Alex's entry -- the company doesn't track entries to their Bracket Manager program. Unlike CBSSports' Bracket Challenge, which ranks players nationally and locks entries once the tournament begins, Bracket Challenge does allow changes after play starts. The Hermanns insist, however, that they filled out their brackets as a family before the tournament started, and haven't touched the picks since. When asked whether the bracket was altered after the tourney began, Alex's mother said, simply, "no."
And then there's this: Alex picked Purdue to win the whole thing. Probably not going to happen.
And that just happens to be his brother’s alma mater. “They’re his favorite for that reason,” Diane said. Or maybe he knows something no one else does.
And there are still four rounds remaining, so it could fall apart.
The odds of a perfect wire to wire bracket? As high as 1 in 1,000,000,000,000.
Click here to see Alex's entire bracket.
Pick the winners and win the national debt! That would be the Obama/Dem pool.
He and his brother could get mega rich handicapping. I really could care less about TV sprts because I dumped TV. How he picked that major upset game is amazing plus all the other games.
Probably not, but this kid has already done the miraculous, and Purdue is a #4 seed (which isn't that low), so it could happen.
I'd like to see his entire bracket.
he can pick my lotto tickets too..
he should be picking stocks
Thanks. No major upsets the rest of the way except maybe No. Iowa over Mich. St. and Purdue over Kentucky. ...and neither of those compare to the magnitude of his earlier upset picks.
there is a wide range of intellect with autistic people....some are near geniuses and others can be rather limited.
I pick Syracuse,,,,yes Syracuse...definitely Syracuse...
Jeez! That is unfathomable.
If Purdue beats Duke I'm wagering some money.
I think you meant to say that you couldn't care less, meaning that you don't care at all. Saying that you could care less is ambiguous as it doesn't indicate whether you actually do care less, but only that there's a possibility of you caring less.
I think he could care less, or he wouldn’t have posted. But he couldn’t care much more less...
That sliver of doubt is all it takes to ruin a good story for me. Too bad they couldn't have used the tamper-proof bracket.
Thank you. I attended pubic schools.
Must be in touch with the aliens from Alpha Eridani 3.
Must’ve missed that tidbit when I first skimmed it. I’d say there’s more than a sliver of doubt to the veracity of this story.
Balloon Boy Bracket?
N. Iowa over Kansas?
Yeah, right....
.....and I had Buster Douglas knocking out Tyson.
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