Chairs on the sidelines at the 2025 NCAA Tournament March Madness logos cover the bench chairs during the first round of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament between the Tennessee Lady Vols and the South Florida Bulls at Value City Arena in Columbus on March 22, 2025.
ArticlesCollege BasketballBy Reice Shipley on

To date, we have never seen a perfect bracket in the Men’s NCAA Tournament. But after the first two days of action, we are far closer to a perfect bracket becoming a reality this year than we have been year-over-year at this point in the tournament in recent memory.

According to the NCAA, over 34 million people have filled out brackets this March in hopes of becoming the first person to ever successfully predict the entirety of the NCAA Tournament.

Of those people who filled out brackets, just 36,000 made it to day two of the NCAA Tournament on Friday with a perfect bracket, which shows just how difficult it is a truly predict every single game correctly.

Each of the past three years, there were no perfect brackets at the end of day two of the NCAA Tournament. The last time that we had a perfect bracket through the Round of 64 came in 2019, when just 15 perfect brackets remained in the Round of 32.

This year, through the Round of 64, we have a grand total of 181 perfect brackets through the first two days of action.

Naturally, fans are eager to see if anyone can do the unthinkable and have a perfect bracket throughout the tournament.

While it still remains incredibly unlikely that we do indeed get a perfect bracket, it is cool to see that there are still so many perfect brackets at this point in the tournament.

As for why this is likely the case, there have been very few actual “Cinderella” teams that came away with upsets in the Round of 64 this year.

Notably, we had just five teams that came away with wins as a double-digit seed in the Round of 64, a list that includes No. 10-seeded New Mexico, No. 12-seeded Colorado State, No. 11 Drake, No. 10-seeded Arkansas, and No. 12-seeded McNeese State.

If there were ever a formula needed for someone to do the impossible and come away with a perfect bracket, it would be a lack of big upsets like we have seen thus far.

So maybe this year is the year that we see someone claim their place in history as the only perfect bracket in the history of the NCAA Tournament.

About Reice Shipley

Reice Shipley is a staff writer for Comeback Media that graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Sports Media. He previously worked at Barrett Sports Media and is a fan of all things Syracuse sports.

View all posts by Reice Shipley