COLUMBUS, Ohio – Losses by a couple of Ohio teams on the first day of March Madness lengthened the odds of winning the office tournament bracket pool or Warren Buffett’s billion-dollar prize.
Dayton beat Ohio State and 12th seed Harvard knocked off Cincinnati and CBSSports.com says 95 percent of the brackets in Buffett’s contest got those games wrong. Buffett is offering a billion dollars for the perfect bracket.
Those two games busted at least eight out of 10 brackets in other online contests as well.
Vee Sanford’s layup with 3.8 seconds lifted 11th-seeded Dayton to a 60-59 victory over sixth-seeded Ohio State in Buffalo. The Buckeyes’ last chance to pull out the victory was snuffed out when Aaron Craft’s driving 10-footer hit off the backboard and rolled off the rim as the buzzer sounded.
Harvard got 11 points from Siyani Chambers, including five straight in the final two minutes of a 61-57 upset of fifth-seed Cincinnati.
In another 12-over-5 upset, the North Dakota State Bison knocked off Oklahoma 80-75 in overtime.
Thanks to those upsets, 83 percent of the brackets in a Yahoo contest were eliminated, as were 81 percent of those on CBSSports.com and 80 percent in an ESPN contest.