I fill out brackets every year. I filled out four brackets this year, and I was doing really well on ESPN, but when [LSU] won, I lost that perfect bracket. Then I realized I had a bracket on Politico that was still perfect, and then it stayed perfect.
I think at one point I was one of 8 people in the country who had a perfect bracket left, and then I lost out in the Villanova game, so I had 38 correct picks in a row. I think the most ever up to that point had been 39, but right now there’s still one guy out there who has a perfect bracket.
So it’s not so much that I’m a basketball savant, as it’s kind of a Slumdog Millionaire kind of thing. [Laughs] It’s a confluence of forces. I looked at the picks, I looked at the Nate Silver blog, and then I kind of just went with my gut.
The Next Chapter In Legal Tech Innovation: Introducing Protégé™
Meet LexisNexis Protégé™, the new AI assistant that leverages personalization choices controlled by the user or their organization to optimize the individual’s AI experience.
— Meghan Hammond, an associate at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, commenting on her unexpected success in her NCAA men’s basketball tournament brackets this year. She’s gotten 46 out of 48 matchups right thus far in Politico Playbook’s NCAA pool. Hammond, an alumnus of the University of Tennessee, has the team going to the finals.
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.