Around 32% of bracket submissions for this year’s NCAA March Madness tournament remained perfect Thursday following the first three games of the college basketball competition, as bracket submitters look to overcome near-impossible odds of perfectly predicting the outcomes of the tournament’s 63 games.
Over half of the brackets submitted to the NCAA were busted after game one of the tournament. (Photo ... More
The NCAA said Thursday that of the over 34 million brackets submitted at the start of March Madness, somewhere over 11 million remained perfect after three games were played.
The first game of the tournament, Creighton University’s 89-75 win over the University of Louisville, busted over half of the brackets submitted to the NCAA.
Purdue University’s 75-63 win over High Point University left about 36% of men’s brackets perfect, leaving around 12 million NCAA brackets in the running.
The University of Houston’s dominating win over Southern Illinois University Edwardsville reduced perfect NCAA brackets to about 11 million.
About 8.1 million of ESPN perfect brackets remained after the tournament’s first three games, about half of the total brackets submitted to the sports network.
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One in 9.22 quintillion if bracket submitters flip a coin or just guess for their picks. The odds improve but stay infinitesimally small if submitters have knowledge of the competing teams and NCAA basketball, lowering to one in 120.2 billion, according to the NCAA. A perfect bracket requires the outcome of a whopping 63 games to be called correctly.
X, formerly known as Twitter, is offering a trip to Mars to anyone who submits a perfect bracket and $100,000 to the best bracket. If the potential perfect bracket winner does not want to make the roughly 140 million-mile voyage to Mars, they can instead receive $250,000, a SpaceX astronaut training experience and a Starship launch viewing.
ESPN has randomly drawn prizes including 20 grand prizes of $5,000 for people who predict the national champion. USA Today Sports will reward $1 million to people who submit a perfect bracket. The NCAA’s Bracket Challenge Sweepstakes gives the contestant with the best bracket two tickets to next year’s men’s Final Four, a four-night hotel stay, $1,500 for airfare and $750 in spending money. (See here for other men’s and women’s March Madness bracket rewards).
Nobody has ever picked a verifiably perfect March Madness bracket, according to the NCAA. The closest a contestant has come was in 2019, when an Ohio man predicted 49 out of the tournament’s 63 games, losing his streak during the Elite Eight round. Duke University is favored to win this year’s tournament, according to DraftKings odds, which lists the powerhouse at a +320 betting line, meaning a $100 bet could net bettors $320. Following Duke in the odds race are the University of Florida (+380), Auburn University (+450) and the University of Houston (+600).
March Madness Starts This Week—As Rewards For Perfect Bracket Include Trip To Mars (Forbes)