Well, that didn’t take long.
The dream of completing a perfect men’s bracket was squashed almost immediately for nearly every single person who filled one out at Yahoo Sports this NCAA tournament season. But by the end of the first day, very few brackets were still perfect. It was a rough start to the tournament.
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No. 9 TCU knocked out more than half of the brackets in the first game of the tournament. The Horned Frogs, after jumping up by 15 points in the first half, held on late to knock off No. 8 Ohio State on Thursday afternoon. That eliminated about 60% of brackets right away.
But the biggest upset of the tournament so far came at the hands of No. 12 High Point. The Panthers, thanks to a go-ahead layup from Chase Johnston with just 11 seconds left in the contest, stunned No. 5 Wisconsin and picked up an 83-82 win. The layup was, remarkably, Johnson’s first 2-point basket of the season.
Johnston finished with 14 points, and he had gone just 0-of-4 from inside the arc entering the contest. According to The Associated Press, he had played more minutes and scored more points without making a 2-point shot than any player in the country.
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That upset win made a huge dent in the perfect bracket watch, too. After the Panthers’ victory, only 5.5% of brackets were still perfect.
Top-seeded Duke survived a scare later on Thursday afternoon, too. The Blue Devils, after trailing by double digits in the first half, beat No. 16 Siena 71-65. That undoubtedly saved plenty, if not all, of the remaining perfect brackets after High Point’s win. But by the time that game ended, and Louisville got past USF, only 2.3% of brackets were still perfect.
Vanderbilt got that number down even more. After the Commodores picked up a 78-68 win over No. 12 McNeese in the sixth game of the day, only 1.6% of perfect brackets remained. A pair of easy wins from Arkansas, which beat Hawaii 97-78, and Michigan State, which beat North Dakota State 92-67, cut that number down to 1.4%.
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A pair of upsets led the late wave, and got the perfect bracket count down below a full number quickly. No. 11 VCU rallied from a 19-point hole in the second half to knock off No. 6 North Carolina in overtime, which marked the largest first-round comeback in NCAA tournament history. As a result, the perfect bracket count was dropped to just 0.6% after that upset.
No. 11 Texas held on late to grab a win over AJ Dybantsa and No. 6 BYU, too. Dybantsa dropped 35 points and 10 rebounds in the contest. That pushed the Longhorns, after their play-in victory on Tuesday, into the second round and left us with just 0.1% of brackets still perfect. No. 1 Michigan had no issue with No. 16 Howard, and Texas A&M handled Saint Mary’s in an upset to contribute in that wave of games, too.
It was the final wave of games that dwindled things down even more. Saint Louis absolutely rolled over Georgia to grab a 102-77 win and make it into the second round. By the time that game ended and the first day of games had come to a close, very few brackets were still standing.
While there’s still time, and some Yahoo Sports users are undefeated entering the late slate of games on Thursday, most perfect brackets disappeared fast this March. We’ll see how many are able to actually survive the first day, let alone the first round.