There is no better time to be a fan of college basketball than March. Sixty-eight teams will enter the NCAA Division I Basketball Tournament and fill stadiums across the nation with the sounds of a hardwood symphony: the rhythmic dribble, the squeaking sneakers on polished courts, the soft swish of the net, the sharp screech of the referee’s whistle and the unforgiving buzzer.
The tournament weaves an unpredictable epic, captivating millions of viewers as each stanza unfolds with tales of triumphant underdogs, shocking upsets, dramatic finishes and shining moments.
Unlike the NBA’s seven-game series format, the NCAA tournament doesn’t offer any forgiveness for uncharacteristic mistakes or poor performances. As teams work through seven rounds of the single-elimination tournament, seeding and talent become nearly irrelevant — all that matters is which team plays better on that particular day.
Has anyone ever picked a perfect March Madness bracket?
Every year, millions of basketball enthusiasts fill out a NCAA tournament bracket in hopes of correctly predicting each twist and turn until the confetti cannons erupt. So far, nobody has gotten a verifiably perfect bracket.
Most fans see their predictions spoiled by bracket-busting underdogs that defy the odds, eliminating high-seeded powerhouse programs that stand in their path. Those unpredictable games are the moments that make March Madness so maddening and so captivating.
In the past four years, there were no verifiable brackets that made it past the first round. In 2024, the last standing bracket correctly predicted 30 games before being taken down by No. 8 Utah State’s victory over No. 9 TCU. In 2023, No. 16 FDU’s victory over No. 1 Purdue eliminated the final bracket in the 25th game. In 2021 and 2022, multiple upsets eliminated every bracket by the 28th game.
What are the odds of picking a perfect bracket?
While a perfect bracket is theoretically possible, it’s also highly improbable. The odds of randomly filling a perfect bracket are one in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 — that's 9.2 quintillion. Anyone with knowledge of college basketball and the tournament’s history can improve their odds to one in 120.2 billion.
Since 2011, the NCAA tournament has featured 68 teams in its field. Eight of those teams compete in the “First Four,” which takes place before the first round of the tournament. Those four games aren’t included in bracket pools, which typically begin in the first round of the tournament with 64 teams remaining. A perfect bracket would have to correctly predict the outcome of 63 games.
Each team knows who they will play in the first round and who they could potentially face in the second round if they win. Beyond that, nothing is certain and the possibilities are nearly endless. Then again, March Madness is all about defying the odds.
What’s the closest anyone has gotten to picking a perfect bracket?
The longest streak of correct picks in any verifiable NCAA tournament bracket was 49 by Gregg Nigl, who set the record in 2019. He became the first person whose bracket made it all the way to the Sweet 16, but his luck ran out in the second game of the round when No. 3 Purdue defeated No. 2 Tennessee 99-94 in overtime.
The previous record was 39 games, which was set in 2017. Once again, it was No. 4 Purdue who spoiled the bracket, defeating No. 5 Iowa State 80-76 in the second round. Due to a relatively low number of surprises, 36 brackets on Yahoo Sports went into the second round that year.
Before that, Brad Binder set the record by correctly picking the first 36 games of the tournament in 2014. He became the first person to correctly pick every game in the first round, per Yahoo Sports. After picking the first four games of the second round correctly, his bracket busted when No. 11 Dayton defeated No. 1 Syracuse 55-53.