Billion Dollar Bracket

This gets me every time. I suppose it goes without saying that I loved this, too.

I don’t know why, but there’s something about that noise (in a math problem, no less) that simultaneous makes me giggle and fires up the I-need-to-know-what-was-said corner of my brain.

So I made this:

Since I made the video ((For the record, that was two months ago. This post has been sitting in draft purgatory for long enough. So it’s time to drop this in the urgent bin and get it out the door.)) a few things have happened in the world of college basketball.

  • UCLA won
  • UCLA won
  • UCLA lost
  • I’m sorry, did they keep playing the rest of the games after UCLA lost?
  • Nobody won. The bracket challenge, I mean. I think someone won the tournament. I’m not really sure.
  • Warren Buffett and Quicken picked up about a billion new home loan leads.

At any rate, I’m not entirely satisfied with the result. I mean, I was really hopeful UCLA could make it to the Elite Eight I could turn this into an engaging lesson hook, but the first group I tried this on kind of just stared at the screen after the Act 1 video ended.

So I’d love some feedback, either in general, or in response to some of these:

  1. Is there any potential here? (I think there is…)
  2. What bits have I got right, if any?
  3. How would you hook students with the “what are the chances…” question here?
  4. Am I missing the point? Is there a better question to ask besides “what are the chances…”?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

P.S. If you’re interested in a link to Act 1 and Act 3, you’re welcome. And here’s a notebook full of some links and images I gathered but never used.

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