With the 2024 NCAA men's tournament underway and the women's tournament set to begin Friday, the chase for the perfect March Madness bracket has also officially begun. While anyone has a chance to get it completely right, odds are 1 in 9.2. quintillion, according to the NCAA.
In other words, as Tim Chartier, a mathematics and computer science professor at Davidson College in North Carolina, told CBS News, it's like picking a single second in 297 billion years. "It's very difficult," he said.
As of Thursday afternoon, after only four games, the NCAA estimates only 11% of the men's tournament brackets remain perfect.
Has anyone had a perfect bracket?
No, but a neurologist from Columbus, Ohio, named Gregg Nigl had the verified bracket closest to perfection. Back in 2019, he correctly guessed the first 49 games of the men's tournament until then-No. 3 ranked Purdue defeated No. 2 Tennessee in the Sweet 16 – ending his bid for perfection.
He told a local newspaper he almost didn't fill out his bracket because he was home sick hours before the deadline. His record as the longest perfect bracket continues to stand —at least for now.
Before him, someone picked 39 games to start the tournament correctly in 2017, according to the NCAA. That bid fell apart when Purdue defeated Iowa State. In the 2023 NCAA men's tournament, it took only 25 games after No. 16-seeded Fairleigh Dickinson University took down No.1 Purdue.
What are the odds of getting a perfect March Madness bracket?
The NCAA said the odds of a perfect 63-game bracket can be as high as 1 in 9.2 quintillion. Those odds are in play if every game was a coin flip – or a fair 50/50 shot. The amount of different possible outcomes comes out to exactly 9,223,372,036,854,775,808, according to the NCAA.
However, you have a better chance of, say, you and your partner each buying one ticket for a Powerball with a billion dollar jackpot and both winning it than a single person producing a perfect bracket, Chartier, the mathematics professor, told CBS News.
Knowledge of college basketball can tip the scales a bit, as the odds of picking a perfect bracket can be as low as 1 in 128 billion, late DePaul University professor Jeff Bergen said in 2019.
Factors such as travel and injury and other random acts make the tournament hard to predict, according to Chartier. Additionally, the stakes weighing on student athletes during the tournament can't be compared to the season.
"There is an immense amount of pressure on certain players who were recently in high school," he remarked. "I believe that no matter what occurs during the season, it cannot compare to the intensity and historical significance of the tournament."
Is a flawless bracket a possibility?
Christopher O'Byrne, a lecturer in management information systems at San Diego State University and an avid college basketball enthusiast, suggests that a perfect bracket could materialize if teams adhered to their "true trajectory" based on their seeding positions. O'Byrne shared with CBS News that weaknesses in the seeding process could be identified through analysis.
However, O'Byrne remains doubtful that a perfect bracket will ever be achieved in his lifetime.
"I wish to live a long and fulfilling life with ample opportunities to witness a perfect bracket, but I am not holding my breath," he expressed.
