Almost all men’s brackets bite the dust on first day

The NCAA Tournament has barely begun, and most brackets in the United States have already been busted.

March Madness Live, the NCAA’s official site, reported only 2.43 per cent of brackets — fewer than 800,000 — across major websites remained perfect halfway through Thursday’s slate of 16 first-round games.

At the ESPN Tournament Challenge, 21.5 million brackets had been dinged, leaving just more than 576,000 still alive.

Those who chose No. 8 seed Mississippi State and No. 6 seed BYU to advance took the biggest hits. Both schools were predicted to get through the first round on more than 9 million ESPN brackets. Mississippi State lost 69-51 to Michigan State, whhile BYU was upset 71-67 by Duquesne.

A record 22.6 million brackets were filled out on ESPN’s site, up 15 per cent from last year.

UConn was picked to win it all on 32.3 per cent of brackets submitted on CBS, far and away the most popular choice. Purdue was next at 12.3 per cent, followed by Houston at 11.9 per cent and North Carolina at 8.9 per cent. All four are No. 1 seeds, and at 3.8 per cent form the most predicted Final Four. The next closest, at 2 per cent, includes No. 2 seed Arizona in place of North Carolina out of the West Region.

Mountain West tournament champion New Mexico, the No. 11 seed in the West, was the most popular double-digit pick to advance to the Sweet 16 at 14 per cent.

Sheldon Jacobson, who runs the BracketOdds website, said most March Madness fans don’t take the proper approach to filling out a bracket.

“Pick the best team you like in each of the regions and then build your bracket from there,” Jacobson said. “When you do that, you’re actually eliminating some of the risk of making mistakes in the other parts of the bracket. It’s very counterintuitive, but that’s what our research paper showed.”