Has anyone ever had a perfect March Madness bracket? 5 fun facts and bracket predictions for the NCAA Tournament

March Madness has become a highly anticipated annual college basketball spectacle for its insane level of unpredictability. This fascination is further fueled by the tradition of fans participating in the tournament bracket prediction

College basketball lovers around the United States eagerly fill out brackets every year in an attempt to forecast the outcome of each game in the tournament.

While March Madness has seen billions of bracket submissions over the number of decades in which the tradition began, none of them has been perfect. The magnitude of potential combinations has rendered it an improbable achievement for several decades.

In this article, we take a look at five fun facts about bracket prediction in the NCAA Tournament.

Five fun facts about March Madness bracket prediction

#1, One in nine 9.2 quintillion chances

If you're trying to guess or flip a coin to craft a perfect March Madness bracket, there's one in 9,223,372,036,775,808 chances that you'll come up with it. In context, there are an estimated 7.5 quintillion grains of sand in the world, showcasing how insane the chances are.

#2, One in 120.2 billion chances

If you're a college basketball enthusiast and well aware of what's going on, you have a better, yet insane, chance of crafting a perfect bracket. According to the NCAA, there's one in 120.2 billion chances that someone with knowledge of basketball will come up with it one day.

#3, The insane amount of annual participation

The participation of fans in the predictions of the March Madness bracket has grown over time. According to the NCAA, over 20 million submissions were made in the 2023 edition, all of which failed to make it past the first round after No. 16 Fairleigh Dickinson defeated No. 1 Purdue.

#4, Prediction Models’ accuracy

In an age where technology handles most things almost perfectly with the right data, the March Madness bracket remains a hard knot to crack. The NCAA disclosed that most prediction models only get the results of the games right roughly 75% of the time.

#5, The closest ever to a perfect bracket

The closest anyone has ever come to crafting a perfect bracket was in 2019, when neuropsychologist, Gregg Nigl came up with his "center road" bracket in the bracket challenge. Nigl remarkably predicted the outcomes of the first 49 games accurately.