1 in 9.2 quintillion.

But he's giving out $100,000 each to the top 20. To be used towards a home purchase, refinancing, or a home improvement, I believe the terms are?

how about tuition? that would help a lot!

I was gonna guess urban legend, but it seems legit. Of course it is one per household and only 10 million total entries.

I gotta get into college basketball. I did a 180 degree turn on the NBA years back with the god damn nonstop soap opera and the shitty rules calibrated to taking every game down to the last second via a shitload of commercials (cough cough) timeouts. It's all bullshit.

I totally forgot about college basketball. That might be alive with possibilities. The NBA is dead to me.

college basketball is definitely better than NBA. It just has a different, better feeling. these guys try hard even if they are down by 35. in the NBA they don't try as hard because in the end, they still get a boat load of money

I agree with ERAfan. College Basketball is way more better then the NBA. Same thing with college football over the NFL. College football contains bowl games In which always turn out to be thrillers. Same thing can be said about the NBA. Sorry, I tend to get all sporty talkative.

Are you guys kidding me? The NBA hasn't been this entertaining for years. The West is absolutely stacked this year - Golden State, Phoenix, Portland, LA Clippers, OKC, there are great matchups just about every night and the playoff series are probably going to be some of the best in recent memory. Beats watching a bunch of one-and-done freshmen teams lacking fundamentals and teamwork suck for forty minutes a game.

You're clearly not watching Syracuse games, 2WL.

"Beats watching a bunch of one-and-done freshmen teams lacking fundamentals and teamwork suck for forty minutes a game"

Apparently ur not watching the same games as us because all the games I have seen have been great! and not every team is full of one and done freshmen. only 60 players get drafted each year which leaves a very small spot for Freshmen. You are probably thinking of the powerhouses like Duke and Kentucky.

I'm sorry, the NBA is undoubtedly better than college basketball, though March Madness is probably the most fun tournament in the world. The NBA is made up of the most elite college players, so you cannot say that they do not try, or simply give up. Teams come back from twenty-point deficits all the time. The Mavs just blew a fifteen point lead with four minutes left a couple weeks ago.

I admit, I love watching college basketball too (although, the new rules are horrendous) but the NBA is simply better. And, to say the players don't care is simply assonine; basketball is their life.

You clearly don't know me as well as you think, GF. I grew up watching DC and John Wallace :)

What does DC have to do with the former Rutgers head football coach? ;-)

So the odds of guessing it exactly after you know who is set where are 1 in 9223372036854775808. If someone sold a shot to win this for $0.10 per guess and required a minimum of say 15 million guesses, he could offer the winner $1,000,000 and be guaranteed he would keep at least $500,000 himself. Do you think it would be difficult to get people to buy guesses at a dime a shot for a shot at a cool million? I bet one could sell well over the 15 million guesses. And you simply offer everyone their money back if at least 10 million guesses weren't submitted and paid for.

The only problem would be is if two people both submitted perfect ones, but then you treat it like the lottery and all winners share in the million dollar grand prize.

To make it interesting, you could make it cumulative from year to year until somebody wins. If it takes 10 years, then you've made loads of money and somebody (or more than one somebody) wins 10 mill.

@Zachattack413
I did not say they did not try, I only said they did not try "as hard" as college players

People have some idea of who is more likely to win so I don't think your math holds up.

Yeah Draug, the odds are a little better than you say for the reason Yonni points out. However, it's still overwhelmingly terrible, and your plan wouldn't have to be modified too much to still work.

I wonder if this will corrupt the tournament, though. Half of a billion dollars is 7 million dollars per team. That's quite a bit of bribe money to play with if somebody were unethical enough to try it.

Years ago there was an Australian company that hired people to buy every lottery ticket combination when the pot significantly exceeded the ticket and worker costs. You could probably do the same with some teams eliminated as not being likely to win in the first round.

Take a triplet off the end for every 10 games whose outcome is a given. But remember, any team can have an off day and this isn't a best of or round robin deal. One game, lose it you're out.

@ERAU
And I think even that clarification is rather trivial and not measurable. I would argue players playing for money play just as hard, because that is their job, but it isn't really measurable. But the fact that any NBA team would beat any college team by at least fifty points, probably closer to eighty, is something that is obvious when you look at the differences in talent

What talent? Acting? The NBA is a soap opera. The college kids would whip their NBA asses.

@Zachattack
of course NBA players are better, im not saying college players could beat them.

@tendmote
yes, they do act a lot in the NBA but i would not go that far as in college KIDS would beat pro NBA players

Asswhipping

tendmote, keep dreaming. Also, flopping occurs in every contact sport at every level. It happens in college too

ERAU: If NBA players are better at basketball, why wouldn't the better basketball oplayers be more enjoyable to watch? For example, in another sphere, would you rather go watch a college production of Phantom of the Opera, or see it on Broadway? Do the Broadway actors not work as hard, now that they've reached the pinnacle of their profession? Of course not!

The same is true of the NBA. Every player there has worked his ass off to get there, and I don't see why that would change.

all im going to say is that its better to watch a college basketball game. It just has a more exciting feel that i can not explain

Fair enough, I'll just agree to disagree, though I do find good college basketball very enjoyable as well! Rock Chalk!

Same with baseball. The farm teams and pioneer leagues are more enjoyable because they want a shot at the big leagues so the players play their hearts out. Once in the majors, many players look to save their bodies first because they know getting hurt will end their cash cow run.

That's not to say all major leaguers do, but a good number of them stop hustling as much as when they could taste the sweet life just ahead.