Nearly 36 million March Madness brackets busted on day one as upsets wreak havoc

March Madness fans took an early hit in this year’s tournament as nearly 36 million brackets were busted on Thursday following a string of early upsets in the first round. 

The NCAA reported Friday that of the more than 36 million brackets filled out across major online sports platforms, roughly 14,000 perfect brackets remain through the first 16 games of the men’s tournament. 

At the very least, that’s around 35,986,000 busted brackets. 

The biggest bracket buster was No. 9 seed TCU’s narrow 66-64 victory over No. 8 seed Ohio State, which left just 14.5 million perfect brackets intact. Nebraska’s first-ever NCAA Tournament win over Troy, which was a brutal 76-47 beatdown, eliminated another 2.5 million brackets.

 But it was the upsets that brought that figure down to over 14,000. 

High Point’s improbable 83-82 win over No. 5 Wisconsin as the No. 12 seed did the most damage, bringing down the total number of flawless predictions to just 2.3 million, and that figure was cut in half again when Louisville survived USF, 83-79. 

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As the day went on, that number dipped below the million mark. But VCU’s historic comeback victory over UNC left a little more than 300,000 perfect brackets. 

Saint Louis’ dominant win over Georgia and Gonzaga’s expected victory over Kennesaw State rounded out the day for just over 14,000 brackets intact, leaving only 0.039% of the original brackets flawless.

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According to the NCAA, last year’s figure after the first day was 36,000. The lowest in recent memory was in 2021 when only 121 perfect brackets remained. 

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