Fewer than 1% of March Madness brackets remain perfect after first day of games
Mar 21, 2025
(AP) - Fewer than 1% of NCAA Tournament brackets were still perfect after Thursday's 16-game slate, according to several services where fans attempt the all-but impossible task of predicting every March Madness game correctly — or, barring that, win their office pools.
ESPN's tracker listed 2
5,802 perfect brackets remaining out of more than 24 million filled out on its site following the final game of the day, Texas Tech's win over UNC-Wilmington.
The NCAA said 0.0938% of more than 34 million brackets were still perfect.
The numbers were similar at CBS Sports, where 0.09% of brackets were unblemished following the first day of action.
Yahoo Sports said 99.9% of its brackets had fallen short of perfection after 11th-seeded Drake beat No. 6 seed Missouri.
Earlier Thursday, about 6.6 million brackets were busted on ESPN when No. 12 seed McNeese beat No. 5 seed Clemson 69-67.
Creighton — which saw a boost in this category because it played the first game of the day — was listed as ESPN's top bracket buster after its 89-75 win over Louisville. There were 13,339,089 ESPN brackets busted by that game. ...read more read less