We’re only halfway through the first round, but there are very few perfect brackets left for the NCAA Men’s Championships.
Foreman and Princeton took care of that.
Only seven games in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, only 0.06% of the brackets taken through Yahoo Sports were still perfect. By the end of the night, only 23 perfect bows remained.
The decline happened very quickly, too. No. 13-ranked Foreman stunned No. 4-ranked Virginia, 68-67, Thursday afternoon in the second game of the day after J.P. Biggies drilled a three-pointer from the wing in the closing seconds. That gave the Paladins their second ever NCAA Tournament win, and their first since 1974.
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Only 13.5% of Yahoo brackets picked Foreman to win her first match. Only 42% of the brackets earned #8 Maryland who beat #9 West Virginia in the first game of the day as well.
That left only 5.4% of arcs being perfect after the first two games.
No. 7 Missouri beat No. 10 Utah State in the third game and then left only 2.88% of the brackets perfect. Utah State was one of the most popular surprise picks in the tournament, and the Aggies were actually favored to win. Missouri led almost the entire way, however, and pulled ahead near the end to win by 11 points.
After that game, 20.8% of the brackets were 0-3.
Then Princeton trimmed the perfect set of brackets even further. The Tigers shocked #2 Arizona with a 58-55 win later Thursday afternoon — spoiling plenty of brackets, including one from President Joe Biden, whose Wildcats are the national champions. Arizona was the sixth most popular pick to win the entire title, and the second most popular selection. Only 2.94% of users chose Princeton to beat Arizona.
The rest of the first day’s menu was much quieter. Outside of No. 9 Auburn beating No. 8 Iowa, and No. 10 Penn State all-time slugging No. 7 Texas A&M, the higher seeds won the rest of the way.
However, by the end of the day, only 23 brackets had selected all 16 games correctly.
In fact, completing a perfect slice is the ultimate NCAA tournament dream, although the odds of doing so are fanciful. It usually takes more than a few hours to see that many broken braces.
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