More than 19 million March Madness bracket submissions were busted on ESPN’s platform alone Thursday afternoon—just three games into the men’s NCAA Tournament—according to the sports network, leaving just over 13% of brackets filled out through ESPN still perfect, and odds are none of them will remain that way.
No. 6 BYU fell short to the Duquesne Dukes in the first round of the NCAA Men's March Madness ... [+]
Just over 11% of brackets created through the NCAA’s Capital One March Madness Bracket Challenge remain perfect after just three games, including an upset by 11-seeded Duquesne over 6-seeded Brigham Young University.
The Dukes won that game 71-67 in a matchup that came down to the wire on Thursday, an outcome less than a quarter of contestants in Yahoo Fantasy Sports’ competition selected—less than 5% of those brackets have the Dukes advancing to the Sweet 16.
Nine-seeded Michigan State also mustered a slight upset in the West region with a 69-51 win over 8-seeded Mississippi State.
$1 million. That’s how much a perfect bracket will win in USA Today Sports’ bracket challenge, while the contestant with the best bracket can still win $25,000 even if they don’t pick every game correctly. The winner of CBS Sports’ bracket challenge will receive tickets to the 2025 NCAA Final Four and $6,000 toward accommodations, while ESPN offers 10 $5,000 prizes.
There has never been a perfect March Madness bracket, and it’s unlikely this year will be any different. The odds of correctly selecting the winner of all 67 games in the tournament stand at an abysmal one in 9.2 quintillion if chosen at random, though a contestant with knowledge of college basketball fares significantly better odds, at one in 102.2 billion, according to the NCAA.
It took just one day of tournament play for every bracket to bust in last year’s men’s March Madness tournament, following an astonishing first-round upset by 16-seeded Fairleigh Dickinson over 1-seed Purdue.