Isaac Choi
Junior Sports Editor
One in 9.2 quintillion. Those are the odds of successfully making a perfect March Madness bracket, which has never been done before in the tournament’s 87 year history. It’s known for being a basically impossible feat.
Across the history of the NCAA Division I Basketball Tournament, countless brackets have been busted year after year due to factors such as game- winning shots or top four seeds unexpectedly losing in the first two rounds. Every year millions of Americans create brackets online, most popularly on ESPN Fantasy’s Tournament Challenge, or print them out on paper to compete with their friends and family, and every year every bracket ends up not being perfect.
The most common “bracket-busting factor”is top seeds being upset. This is a year-to- year tradition where typically a smaller mid-major school will upset the high- seed power five school. This leads to not only competitors getting one pick wrong but also possibly several considering top seeds can often be picked to win the entire tournament.
Last year in the 2025 tournament over four million people made brackets. The tournament was a different one from the others. First,the top four seeds went undefeated in the first round.The last time that happened was in 2007.Then the final four teams were all one seed creating an “all chalk” final four, which hadn’t only occurred in 2008 previously. The final result was that Florida won the tournament.
This year’s tournament starts on March 15, with Selection Sunday being the day the bracket is announced. Currently the top seeds include Duke, Michigan Arizona and UConn. The school with the best odds to win according to ESPN Futures is Duke with +320 odds.
This year will feature games locally in St .Louis at the Enterprise Center, on March 20, and 21 throughout the first and second rounds. Schools within the state are also set to be featured in the tournament with schools like SLU and Mizzou.
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