The dream of perfect brackets for all but a select few is already over.
Most of the spots have already been snapped up, as several NCAA Tournament games are still scheduled to be decided Thursday. Just 3% of the rankings filled in via Yahoo Sports were still perfect early in Thursday afternoon's game, but after No. 14 Oakland upset No. 3 Kentucky on Thursday night, that number dropped to 0.1%. It went down to .
After all of Thursday's games, only 116 brackets were still perfect.
The biggest drop of the day came after No. 11 Duquesne pulled off a 71-67 upset victory over No. 6 BYU. It was the first time the Dukes had won this tournament since 1969. Most users were eliminated from this game alone, as BYU was eliminated in the first round with just over 75% of the brackets. After passing by Morehead State, Duquesne will next play No. 3 Illinois State in the second round.
I knocked out a lot of brackets in the first game as well. Tom Izzo and No. 9 Michigan State defeated No. 8 Mississippi State 69-51 in Thursday afternoon's opener. It marked Izzo's 20th first-round win of the tournament and set off a battle between the Spartans and top-seeded North Carolina, which defeated No. 16 Wagner in the first round. About 35% of brackets have the Bulldogs making it past the first round.
No. 11 Oregon State fended off No. 6 South Carolina 87-73 in the first round, cutting the remaining perfect bracket in half to about 7%. No. 7 Dayton then rallied from a late 17-point hole to defeat No. 10 Nevada, cutting the number of perfect bracket spots to just 2.96%. At that point, Dayton beat Nevada in just over 44.5% of perfect brackets.
The other three games in the initial wave (Creighton vs. Akron, Arizona vs. Long Beach State, and North Carolina vs. Wagner) were selected correctly by more than 90% of users.
On Thursday night, Texas defeated Colorado State 56-44, reducing the number of perfect spots to just 2.1%. And it was Oakland's big win over Kentucky that really clinched the remaining perfect spot. Oakland dominated the Wildcats with an all-time great performance from Jack Goelke, earning an 80-76 upset victory. This is the first time in program history that the Golden Grizzlies have advanced to the second round of the tournament. Approximately 96% of users chose Kentucky to advance to the second round. As a result, the perfect bracket left him with only 0.1%.
By the end of the night, only 116 full spots remained after Kansas State and Washington State had narrow wins over Samford University and Drake University, respectively.
There's still plenty of basketball to be played throughout the remainder of the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. But at the pace we're already going, it's unlikely we'll get many, if any, perfect brackets by the end of the first round.
