News

Actions

9-year-old bracket brainiac picks championship game

Posted at 9:50 PM, Apr 09, 2019
and last updated 2019-04-09 21:51:20-04

ROCKFORD, Mich. — Phil Roberts Jr. is 9 years old. He loves math and has a knack for sports statistics.

Phil Roberts Sr. says his kid has always taken to predicting games and is only getting better each year. This year, he picked three Final Four contestants correctly: Virginia, Auburn, and Texas Tech.

He also correctly predicted Texas Tech would lose in the championship game to Virginia with a combined score of 157, just five points over the actual total.

“Texas Tech, I watched them play a little bit, and I thought they played pretty good,” Phil Jr. said. "So I had a feeling they would make it to the championship, kind of."

Phil Jr. says he's just lucky. It comes naturally to him.

“Based on what team you play, you have to kind of change how you play a little bit,” he said.

His dad says Phil Jr. is always glued to the TV whenever sports are on, studying the stats scrolling on bottom of the screen. So, it makes sense that he'd predict such a good bracket.

So good, in fact, the NCAA says only .03% of brackets completed had Texas Tech in the championship game.

His dad says Phil certainly didn't just get lucky, that he studied his way to that conclusion.