The NCAA basketball tournament is like an unofficial holiday. Once Selection Sunday rolls around and the field of 68 is revealed, the real fun begins when you have the ultimate dream: defying the long odds of a perfect bracket and going 63-for-63 on your picks.
Then Thursday arrives, and you realize you underestimated a No. 12 seed or put way too much stock in that four seed that was knocked out in the first round. Before you know it, the office pool is in the trash can next to your desk.
With this year’s NCAA Tournament just about here, lets focus the basics. March Madness is broken down into four regions of 16 teams — East, South, Midwest, and West. Four of the spots are finalized during the First Four, or the play-in tournament. When it comes time to filling out the bracket, you’ll be tasked with selecting the winners for each matchup, including the national championship game.
Before we dive into the first round of the NCAA Tournament starting on Thursday, we still have two First Four games on Tuesday and Wednesday nights to determine certain seeds. Below, we’ll look at the latest March Madness odds, why building a perfect bracket is next to impossible, and more.
Bracket probabilities: Can you build a perfect bracket?
The answer to the above question can be summed up by using the words highly unlikely. Why else is Warren Buffett so willing to offer $1 billion to anyone who could fill out a perfect bracket? And why Elon Musk can confidently offer a trip to Mars?
The bottom line is it’s an incredibly difficult feat to accomplish. According to the NCAA, the odds of creating a perfect bracket are 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 if you’re strictly guessing or 1 in 120.2 billion if you have some background knowledge.
Here’s a look back at the seven most recent tournaments and when the last verifiably perfect bracket busted each time, also according to NCAA.com:
| Year | Result |
| 2024 | No. 8 Utah State’s win against No. 9 TCU busted the last standing bracket. |
| 2023 | Busted when Fairleigh-Dickinson beat Purdue in the Round of 64. |
| 2022 | Busted when No. 11 Iowa State beat No. 6 LSU. |
| 2021 | Busted by the 28th game of the tournament. |
| 2020 | No tournament due to COVID-19 |
| 2019 | Gregg Nigl predicted the first 49 games correctly, but his bracket was busted in the Sweet Sixteen when Purdue beat Tennessee. He had a perfect bracket through two rounds. |
| 2018 | Busted when No. 16 UMBC beat No. 1 Virginia in the Round of 64. |
Why is picking a perfect bracket so difficult?
You might know this already, but building a perfect bracket is close to impossible. After the First Four wraps up on Wednesday night, there will be 64 teams remaining. Did you ever have a college final exam that required 63 correct answers? A perfect bracket means there is no room for error. One wrong pick, and the perfect bracket is busted.
Over the years, there have been several massive upsets. Last year, No. 14 Oakland shocked No. 3 Kentucky and No. 13 Yale eliminated No. 4 Auburn.
In 2023, No. 1 Purdue, a team favored to win the entire tournament, lost to a No. 16 seed in Fairleigh-Dickinson. There was another No. 16 upset in 2018 with UMBC. There have also been several No. 15 upsets over No. 2 seeds.
Why picking underdogs in brackets could hurt you
As mentioned, picking the perfect bracket is difficult, but creating a strong bracket is possible with some strategy. Sure, there are numerous underdog stories we can point to. While they seemingly have happened more recently, it’s important not to go into the tournament solely through the lens of picking underdogs. The same is also true for picking favorites.
There are bound to be some upsets. According to NCAA.com, there are roughly 8.5 upsets per year. The most was 14 in 2021 and 2022, and the fewest was three in 2007. As the tournament advances, the upsets become fewer and farther between.
| Round | Average upsets |
| First round | 4.7 |
| Second round | 3.13 |
| Sweet Sixteen | 0.25 |
| Elite Eight | 0.30 |
| Final Four | 0.10 |
There are certainly those outliers, like last year when NC State advanced all the way to the Final Four, but overall, these Cinderella teams do eventually get knocked out.
Also, good teams such as Duke and Houston are considered favorites for a reason. When these high ranked teams advance to the Sweet 16 or Elite Eight, it shouldn’t come as a surprise. When it comes to March Madness, any team is capable of having a poor shooting night. A good approach is figuring out which team will win the East, South, Midwest, and West, and build the rest of your bracket around those four teams.
Again, it’s highly unlikely 2025 will be the year of the perfect bracket. Since upsets tend to happen in the first two rounds, that’s where the biggest challenge comes.
