Perfect brackets fall to single digits after Day 3 of March Madness

Forty games into the NCAA Tournament, fans hoping to fill out a perfect bracket were a respectable 2 for 26,587,885.

No. 11 seed Texas all but wiped out the remaining unblemished entries in the annual March Madness contests with its 74-68 upset of No. 3 seed Gonzaga on Saturday night.

After the win by the Longhorns, who started in the First Four, there were 22 perfect entries in ESPN’s bracket challenge and 27 in the NCAA’s contest.

The last three games on Saturday were won by higher-seeded teams, but No. 4 seed Nebraska was hardly a sure thing, having never won an NCAA Tournament game before this week. The Cornhuskers survived fifth-seeded Vanderbilt 74-72, and once Arkansas knocked off High Point, ESPN had two perfect brackets left.

On the NCAA’s official site, there were four.

Favored teams went 16-0 on Friday, and they started 4-0 on Saturday, leaving more than 100 brackets intact. No. 1 seed Duke dominated No. 9 seed TCU in the second half and won 81-58. No. 1 Michigan dispatched No. 9 seed Saint Louis 95-72. No. 2 seed Houston hammered No. 10 seed Texas A&M 88-57. No. 3 Michigan State beat sixth-seeded Louisville 77-69.

The odds of going 63-0 in a bracket contest are somewhere between one in 9.2 quintillion (for totally random guesses) or one in 120 billion (semi-educated ones).



(AP Photo Brynn Anderson)