Four got Four [Update]

The following excerpt is from the New York Times Sports section:

Was there a secret to making sense of possibly the most unpredictable N.C.A.A. tournament? For Russell Pleasant, a 46-year-old software engineer from Omaha, it took a lucky mistake.

When he filled out his bracket earlier this month, he thought George Washington would reach this weekend's Final Four. Instead, he ended up picking George Mason, round after round after round, all the way to Indianapolis.

Now, he finds himself a rare survivor among millions of broken hearts with busted brackets across the nation. In ESPN.com's 2006 Men's College Basketball Tournament Challenge, Pleasant had one of the four entries among three million with U.C.L.A., Louisiana State, Florida and George Mason in the Final Four...

Last season, 4,172 people picked all four teams in ESPN.com's pool. But last year's Final Four featured a more predictable lineup: two top-seeded teams, North Carolina and Illinois; a fourth-seeded team, Louisville; and a fifth-seeded team, Michigan State.

At cbs.sportsline.com, none of the two million brackets submitted this year had all four teams. In the Yahoo Sports pool, just one of more than a million entered had all four. That entry was submitted by a contestant named Tim McKenna....

By the way, Pleasant picked Florida to defeat U.C.L.A. in the championship game. He remains in contention to win the top prize, $10,000.

Mike Breen, a mathematician at the American Mathematical Society in Providence, R.I., said the chances of being one of the people who correctly picked the Final Four in ESPN.com's contest this year were about 1 in 750,000. Last year, he said, roughly 1 in 700 brackets included the correct four teams.