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The odds of perfect bracket in March Madness remain astronomical. Will this be your year?
WASHINGTON — March Madness season is officially kicking off and we now know which teams will compete in the 2025 NCAA basketball tournaments and where they’ll play.
The First Four games will start the season Tuesday and Wednesday, March 18 and 19 in Dayton, Ohio. Things really ramp up with the first round on Thursday and Friday, March 20 and March 21. The second round is Saturday and Sunday, March 22 and March 23.
After last year’s upsets, who’s to say what the brackets end up looking like this season?
You can click here or below to download a printable men’s tournament bracket to fill out for March Madness 2025. And even though there has never been a perfect March Madness bracket, maybe this is your year?
What are the odds of a perfect bracket?
According to NCAA.com, the odds of picking a perfect bracket at random — not even counting the play-in games — is 1 chance out of 2 to the 63rd power, which is 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808, or about 1 in 9.2 quintillion (give or take 20 quadrillion or so). According to University of Hawaii researchers, that is more brackets than the number of grains of sand on Earth.
However, NCAA.com also notes that the odds are more like 1 in 120.2 billion, if the person making the bracket takes into account info about which teams are better and tournament history.
It’s believed that the closest anyone has gotten to a perfect bracket occurred just five years ago.
During the 2019 tournament, an Ohio man correctly guessed all the games going into the Sweet 16, according to NCAA.com. But his streak of 49 correct picks was ended when Purdue beat Tennessee 99-94 in overtime of the second game in the Sweet 16.
A record 22 million brackets were filled out on ESPN’s site in 2024, up 15% over the last year, with some of the early results knocking out millions. Mississippi State’s 69-51 loss to Michigan State and Brigham Young’s 71-67 loss to Duquesne each took out more than 9 million brackets. The biggest upset of the first day, third-seeded Kentucky’s 80-76 loss to Oakland, also did some damage: The third-seeded Wildcats were picked in 95% of brackets in the ESPN Tournament Challenge to beat the 14th-seeded Golden Grizzlies.
In 2023, it took just 25 games for there to be no more perfect brackets – after No. 16 FDU stunned No. 1 Purdue.
In 2022 and 2021, it took just 28 games for there to be no more perfect brackets.
