Spectator’s Guide Round One, Day 2 Men’s NCAA Tournament action
Mackenzie Salmon highlights three games to watch on Friday and what makes each one interesting.
The first half of the NCAA Tournament is over. Chances are, Your bracket It’s already broken.
Oakland is Thursday’s big bracket buster, with the No. 14 Golden Grizzlies taking out the No. 3 Kentucky Wildcats.
by the NCAA, Oakland’s upset gave up just 2,178 perfect brackets in its own bracket play. The NCAA said only 0.06% of those entered. And that number was further reduced Thursday night when NC State became just the third No. 11 seed to knock off a No. 6 seed.
ESPN adjusts the number After the first full day of play, with 1,825 … of 22,114,647 entries left on the site, perfect brackets. The NCAA said fewer than 200 perfect brackets remain in its own game after the upset of NC State — though perhaps one of them is Atlanta Falcons running back BJean Robinson.
Thursday’s other bracket busts were Duquesne, Oregon and NC State, all No. 11 seeds. They knocked off 6 seed BYU, South Carolina and Texas Tech in that order.
After eight games, the NCAA said 2.43% of brackets remained perfect, but that was actually a big step up from last year, when 0.124% of brackets were intact after eight games. Those brackets were upset by No. 4 Virginia and No. 2 Arizona — and upsets by No. 6 Iowa State and, most notably, No. 1 Purdue — before the end of the first round.
Kentucky’s loss as a No. 3 — its second double-digit seed in three years — took a toll, though. Only 5.11% of those entering the NCAA bracket play picked Oakland, while nearly 25% of brackets put the Wildcats in the Final Four.
Sure, there’s never been a perfect bracket – but there’s still hope for hundreds of you! You can be the first!