March Madness 2026: Upsets Shatter Perfect Brackets on Day 1

TCU upset Ohio State 66-64 in the first round of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament on Thursday, a result that immediately decimated a significant number of otherwise perfect brackets in the nationwide bracket challenges. The late game victory, secured by a Xavier Edmonds layup with 4.3 seconds remaining, eliminated approximately 14.5 million perfect brackets across major online games, according to tournament trackers.

The opening day of the tournament featured a higher-than-usual rate of upsets. Three games concluded with results contrary to seeding expectations, surpassing the total number of first-round upsets from the entirety of the 2025 tournament. No. 4 Nebraska’s dominant 76-47 win over No. 13 Troy further reduced the pool of perfect brackets, eliminating another 2.5 million. No. 12 High Point’s 83-82 victory against No. 5 Wisconsin brought the total down to around 2.3 million, while No. 6 Louisville’s 83-79 win over No. 11 USF reduced the number of unblemished brackets to 1.2 million.

The upsets continued to mount as the day progressed. No. 11 VCU staged a remarkable comeback, overcoming a six-point deficit in the final minute of regulation to defeat No. 6 North Carolina 82-78 in overtime, leaving just over 300,000 perfect brackets intact. No. 10 Texas A&M then dispatched No. 7 Saint Mary’s 73-50, halving the number of perfect brackets to approximately 150,000. No. 11 Texas followed suit with a 79-71 win over No. 6 BYU, leaving a little over 30,000 brackets still perfect.

The final significant blow to bracket hopefuls came with No. 9 Saint Louis’s commanding 102-77 victory over No. 8 Georgia, reducing the number of perfect brackets to under 15,000. Following No. 3 Gonzaga’s 73-64 win over No. 14 Kennesaw State, only 14,000 – roughly 0.039% of all submitted brackets – remained unblemished.

This initial culling of perfect brackets is a stark contrast to recent years. While the 14,000 remaining brackets are significantly fewer than the 36,000+ that survived the first day in 2025, it is a higher number than seen in 2024 (2,100+), 2023 (787), 2022 (192), 2021 (121), and 2019 (approximately 60,000).

No. 1 Duke narrowly avoided an upset, defeating No. 16 Siena 71-65. Wins by No. 5 Vanderbilt, No. 4 Arkansas, and No. 3 Michigan State further contributed to the dwindling number of perfect brackets.