The NCAA reported on Friday that roughly 14,000 perfect brackets remain through the first 16 games of the 2026 men's Division I basketball tournament, out of more than 36 million entries submitted across major online platforms.
The figure represents nearly all brackets busted on Thursday, March 19, following a string of early upsets in the first round. The 68-team single-elimination event, known as March Madness, opened its first round that day at sites across the United States, including the Moda Center in Portland, Oregon; Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville, South Carolina; and Paycom Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.[1]
The current total of perfect brackets stands at about 0.039% of entries, lower than the 36,000 that survived Day 1 last year but above the recent low of 121 in 2021.[2][3]
The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament first round spans Thursday and Friday, with the remaining 16 first-round games scheduled for March 20, 2026. The bracket challenge aggregates submissions from partners including CBS Sports, ESPN and Yahoo Sports.
No perfect bracket has ever correctly predicted all 63 games since comprehensive tracking began, with the fewest advancing past early rounds amid frequent upsets.
Sources
- NCAA, "2026 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament", accessed October 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_NCAA_Division_I_men%27s_basketball_tournament
- NCAA, "Perfect picks: 2023 NCAA Tournament bracket challenge Day 1 update", March 17, 2023, https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-men/article/2023-03-17/perfect-picks-2023-ncaa-tournament-march-madness-bracket-challenge-update-day-1
- NCAA, "2021 NCAA Tournament Bracket Challenge: Just 121 perfect brackets remain after Day 1", March 19, 2021, https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-men/article/2021-03-19/2021-ncaa-tournament-bracket-challenge-just-121-perfect-brackets-remain-after-day-1
