The Longest NCAA Bracket Has Remained Perfect in Recent History
Photo by Jacob Rice on Unsplash
March 29, 2023
Every year that March rolls around people around the world submit millions of brackets. Almost all of us each year think that we can be the one that can pull out with the perfect one.
Even though technically it is possible, the amount of pure luck would have to be associated with the 63 games in the tournament. The odds for a person with basketball knowledge to get a perfect bracket is 1 in 120.2 billion. The beloved March Madness tournament’s longest (verifiable) streak of accurate picks to open an NCAA tournament bracket is 49 games, which was set in 2019. An Ohio man correctly predicted all of the games all the way up to the sweet 16 until his streak was snapped when Purdue beat Tennessee in an OT nail-biter.
Take a look at the longest streaks in the past couple of years…
2023 – The last verifiable bracket of this year’s tournament was all the way up until when No.16 FDU stunned No.1 Purdue in the 25th game of the tournament.
2022 – In the year 2022, every single bracket didn’t make it past the first day. Most were busted when NO. 11 Iowa State upset No. 6 LSU.
2021 – In 2021 multiple upsets had all of the brackets gone by the 28th game.
2020 – No NCAA tournament due to covid.
2019 – Before the 2019 NCAA tournament, the longest streak of correct picks there was in March Madness was 39 games which took place in 2017.
Then, a man out of Columbus Ohio shattered that record by getting every single game right for the entire first 2 rounds. Which means he predicted the correct 49 games in a row. Gregg Nigl became the first person to ever pick a perfect bracket all the way up to the sweet 16.
2018 – Not a single perfect bracket made it past the first Friday due to the historic upset of No. 16 UMBC defeating No. 1 Virginia. Over 2 dozer brackets were perfect through the 28th game of the tournament, then this upset occurred.
2017 – A very impressive 39 games picked in a row occurred in 2017. A bracket that was entered into Yahoo’s bracket game. This bracket almost reached 40 until Iowa State couldn’t pull the dub away against Purdue.
