For those who think the NCAA Tournament is just for American basketball fans, think again.
Here are some facts to digest:
First of all, forget about thinking you can predict a perfect bracket – there are only 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 possible bracket outcomes, according to AskMen.com, meaning your chances are more 9 quintillion to 1 against.
Of the 64 teams in the final bracket, 42 of them are represented by at least one player born outside the United States. All told, 36 countries besides the U.S. are covered by a total of 79 foreign-born players.
The largest non-U.S. contingent comes from Canada with 14 players, followed by seven each from Serbia and Nigeria. Then come Cameroon, France and Lithuania with four each.
Looking further into the numbers:
Europe: 33
Belarus: 1
Belgium: 1
Bosnia-Herzogovina: 1
Croatia: 1
England: 3
France: 4
Germany: 1
Greece: 1
Italy: 1
Latvia: 1
Lithuania: 4
Montenegro: 2
Romania: 2
Russia: 1
Serbia: 7
Spain: 1
Turkey: 1
Africa: 17 – seven countries
Australia: 3
Central America: 6
South America: 4
Asia: 2
And there are four teams (Utah, USC, Western Kentucky, Temple) with four non-Americans on their roster and six others (Connecticut, BYU, California, Cal-State Northridge, Florida State, Portland State) have three. North Carolina is the only No. 1 or No. 2 seeded team without a player born on foreign soil.
Very interesting has to be the locker room for Western Kentucky, which has two Belgrade natives, one player born in Cetinje, Montenegro, and another from the Philippines.
So when you’re watching the NCAA Tournament over the next two weeks, remember, this is a global event.
