March Madness bracket totally busted? You’re not alone.
WASHINGTON — It took only two days to break everyone’s March Madness bracket.
After Fairleigh Dickinson’s upset over No. 1 Purdue on Friday night, the NCAA said there are no perfect brackets remaining.
Thursday’s action started with more than 20 million brackets in the major online games and ended with only 787 perfect brackets, according to the NCAA website.
No. 8 Maryland’s win against No. 9 WVU wiped out about half the initial field, and then No. 13 Furman’s upset victory over No. 4 Virginia caused further chaos, according to NCAA tracking on the ESPN, CBS, Yahoo and Men’s Bracket Challenge games. That upset dropped the number of perfect brackets to only 10.67% after two games, then No. 7 Missouri beating No. 10 Utah State knocked out 4% more.
Later in the day, No. 15 Princeton upset No. 2 Arizona 59-55. That dropped the perfect total down to 0.12% of the millions of brackets that started the day.
As the second day of games got underway on Friday, less than 30 perfect brackets were left. The upset by FDU wiped out 26 of the final brackets still in the game.
In ESPN’s Tournament Challenge bracket game, only 658 perfect brackets remained by the end of the first day. The Men’s Bracket Challenge Game had 62 perfect brackets, while CBS had 44 and Yahoo had 23.
Last year, there were only 192 perfect brackets remaining after the first day of excitement, which saw a 15 seed, two 12 seeds and an 11 seed win, according to the NCAA.
For the past two years, it took 28 contests in March Madness for perfection to be eliminated.
Has there ever been a perfect March Madness bracket?
It’s believed that the closest anyone has gotten to a perfect bracket occurred just four 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.
The NCAA tracking is based on millions of brackets posted online to the NCAA Bracket Challenge Game, ESPN, Yahoo and CBS. That does not include offline office pools or any other platforms running their own bracket challenge games.
What are the odds of a perfect bracket?
According to NCAA.com, if you were to simply guess or flip a coin for each matchup, the odds of a perfect NCAA bracket are 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808.
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.
