There are 18 people on a basketball team, and the coach needs to choose 5 to put into a game. How many different possible ways can the coach choose a team of 5 if each person has an equal chance of being selected?
This is a combination problem, as the order in which the players are selected does not matter.
The number of ways to choose a team of 5 from 18 players can be calculated using the combination formula: C(n, k) = n! / (k!(n-k)!), where n is the total number of players and k is the number of players to choose.
Therefore, the number of possible ways the coach can choose a team of 5 players from 18 can be calculated as: C(18, 5) = 18! / (5!(18-5)!) = 8568
So, there are 8568 different possible ways the coach can choose a team of 5 players from a team of 18.