With March Madness in full swing, big upsets can prove exciting — who doesn’t love a Cinderella story? But can also bust your meticulously thought-out bracket.
Maybe you sat down and analyzed statistics and shuffled through historical matchups, or you simply mutter “go sports” at the TV and made some wild guesses on your colleague’s bracket challenge. Regardless, one missed shot, one single upset, and your entire bracket is shot.
But as of Friday afternoon, as the teams played through a slate of 16 games, how many people still had a perfect bracket? What are your odds of getting one? And how far did one guy go to reach a record? Find out below.
Has anyone ever picked a perfect March Madness bracket? Who is Gregg Nigl?
Never has a verifiable perfect bracket been submitted, according to the NCAA.
The closest one has gotten is Gregg Nigl, a neurologist from Columbus, Ohio, who holds the record for the longest perfect bracket. In 2019, he correctly guessed the first 49 games of the men’s tournament, only falling short when Purdue, the No. 3 seed, defeated No. 2 Tennessee in the Sweet 16, he told The Columbus Dispatch. He told the newspaper he almost didn’t fill out the bracket because he was sick hours before the deadline.
What are the odds of getting a perfect NCAA bracket?
You are 15,000 times more likely to die from a shark bite and four million times more likely to be struck by lightning then to get a perfect March Madness bracket, according to data collected by Forbes.
So you’re saying there’s a chance? Yup, there is about a 1 in 9.2 quintillion odds of a perfect bracket by just guessing or by coin toss, according to the NCAA. Your odds are better if you know a little something about the game: 1 in 120.2 billion.
Odds of a perfect bracket vs lottery
You are over 200 times more likely to win the Powerball lottery than to have a perfect NCAA bracket, Forbes determined.
Does anyone still have a perfect bracket? Here’s the NCAA perfect bracket trackers
After a 16-game slate on Thursday during Day 1 of the men’s March Madness tournament, there were less than 1% of brackets still perfect, several media outlets reported.
It’s likely your bracket could already be busted, or you could Be among the miniscule number of people who still remain with a perfect bracket. Here’s what each site is reporting as of Friday afternoon. Note: These were the latest updates at the time.
NCAA perfect bracket tracker
As of 4:30 p.m. on Friday, NCAA reported just 0.0188% of brackets remained perfect.
ESPN perfect bracket tracker
Heading into Friday’s games, there were 25,802 perfect brackets remaining out of 24 million on ESPN.
Yahoo perfect bracket tracker
As of 4:30 p.m. on Friday, only 375 brackets remained perfect. Just 34.5% of brackets picked Colorado State (No. 12) to claim victory over No. 5 Memphis on Friday.
Lori Comstock is a New Jersey-based journalist with the Mid-Atlantic Connect Team.
