The longest (verified) perfect NCAA tournament bracket

We've tracked more than 100 million verifiable March Madness brackets at the most popular digital bracket games over the past few years, and last year's 49-for-49 start by Gregg Nigl was the best start we've ever seen (by far). It's impossible to say that no bracket has EVER been better since 1985 when the NCAA Tournament bracket expanded to its current bracket format, but we feel good about how closely we've scrutinized the ones we can track.

Connect with March Madness:

#marchmadness #collegebasketball

[tyrantrex]

Nobody is going to get anywhere remotely close to a perfect bracket this year. This tournament is going to be an absolute mess.

[josephvanhorn]

People win the bracket challenge all the time. It’s much cooler to be the person who got the first 49 games right. That’s unbelievable. What a way to snap the winning streak too.

[OrtaPottyProd]

ITS GONNA FEEL SO GOOD TO HAVE MARCH MADNESS BACK

[BaldguyWifi]

To be fair you can’t call a majority of these games “coin flips” because there are odds that work in your favor

[lukemarx]

I think every single sports fan has the same mentality come march 19th. this is my perfect year. and it never is

[thelastmanonearth]

In a way...it's almost poetic that he didn't actually WIN the whole thing. But he got to have an amazing and memorable experience with his son, and a YouTube video made about him. Good for Gregg Nigl.

[anewfuture]

Some people in comments are saying that the odds are not 50/50 per game.

Lets hypothetically say you give an average of 70% odds for a team to win. That would be a mix of the 99 to 1 odds of 1/16 or 2/15s, and the more coinflip games in later rounds.

Your odds of a perfect bracket of 65 correct answers, when your chance of being correct on every game is 70%, is approximately 1 in 6 billion.

Roughly 70 million brackets are filled out every year. So, if we assume you always have a 70% chance of being right(which is probably being generous), it will take an average of 84 years for ONE person to get a perfect bracket.

[gabbzz]

Woah, that is an amazing bracket! I can never hope to get even near that close 😂😂

[dansmolenski]

Flight has a perfect bracket every year the cameras just aren’t on

[Cromulant]

Back in 2005, on the ESPN Challenge Bracket, I missed one game in the opening set - went perfect the rest of the way as the team I didn't pick in the one opener lost the next round. Tied for first with 32 other brackets who also only had one game incorrect, but lost out on the million dollar prize on the tie breaker, which went to the person who guessed the final score most accurately. Never played a bracket since knowing I'd never come remotely close to matching it.

[furcoatssuck]

Once of the 32 games in round one, I actually picked 25 of the 32 correct. It was I thought I was going to be a celebrity for it

[megaascension]

My best bracket ever was in 2018. I got 15 of the sweet 16 right, 7 of the elite 8 right, three of the final 4 right, and one of the two teams in the National Championship right. Problem is, I picked Virginia to win the National Championship that year. Here's the system I used-
I gathered nine statistics on each team-
Record
Conference Record
Non-Conference Record
Record in Last Ten Games
Current Win/Loss Streak
Record against top 25 teams
Record against tournament teams
Offensive PPG
Defensive PPG
I compared the statistics in each matchup, and whichever team won more statistical matchups, I picked to win the game.

[marleysax]

How fitting that Tennessee was the bracket killer. What a heartbreaking team to root

go vols

[volsfan]

Tbh his bracket should’ve stayed perfect. That was a bs foul call on Lamonte Turner that let the game go into OT

[treytoyama]

Back in 7th grade middle school I had a perfect bracket. Sent it in but must have gotten lost. I also didn’t have the cameras on because social media wasn’t as big as it is now.
-Flight

[jumalama]

Really had to pull out that Tennessee game on me

[Natesonline]

I had a perfect bracket in 2016 but it wasn't online me and my buddies wrote it on the back of a napkin at a bar in Philly

[Theguy-eyje]

The thing that stinks is that Tennessee should have won if the refs hadn’t called a foul that didn’t happen

[ok-xhdn]

imagine being a person at home that did it for fun and you actually got it all right. But no one will believe you cause you didn't submit it.

[bowlchamps]

You should make a video about the guy who earned 10MM+ every March Madness since 1993