This is the first bracket I've ever tried. I didn't really know who to pick, but I knew to sprinkle in some upsets here and there."
Chase VilandThe NCAA men’s basketball tournament is an athletic convergence of magic, mystery and mayhem combined with the mathematical computations of trying to figure which upset happens when.
For Chase Viland, a Baylor School junior, the first day of his first try at picking the winners may be hard to top.
Viland, who is from Dalton, Ga., was one of 273 entries among the more than 11.57 million brackets submitted to ESPN.com that went 16-for-16 in Thursday’s first round. He ultimately hit his first 19 picks — one of only 85 people among the millions to do so — and was on the front page of the ESPN.com leaderboard for most of Friday afternoon.
“This is the first bracket I’ve ever tried,” he said Friday as the tournament started to conclude the first round. “I didn’t really know who to pick, but I knew to sprinkle in some upsets here and there.”