The final full Yahoo Sports bracket was eliminated on the second day of the NCAA men’s tournament. For a while, it looked like the women’s tournament was trending in the same way, but with one person successfully winning all 16 games.
A full bracket remains after the first round of the NCAA Women’s Tournament. It was officially the last bracket standing after No. 10 seed Baylor’s upset of No. 7 Alabama on Saturday afternoon, but needed to take six more games to remain perfect.
The bracket got chalked up to all those games, though, and it proved to be a wise strategy. No. 4 UCLA’s loss to No. 13 Sacramento State was the last win it needed.
What did this bracket pick for the future? It featured a Final Four of South Carolina, LSU, Connecticut, and Iowa, with South Carolina defeating LSU 75–61 in the All-SEC National Championship game.
It didn’t take long for the women to be exposed on Friday. Only 28.3% of the brackets were still correct after the first two games, which were No. 9 South Florida beating No. 8 Marquette and No. 7 Arizona beating No. 10 West Virginia. By the end of the day, less than 0.1% of the brackets were perfect, despite every No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, No. 4 and No. 5 seed surviving.
The big upswing came on Saturday morning and destroyed nearly every remaining class. No. 12 seed FGCU knocked off No. 5 seed Washington State and No. 12 Toledo knocked off No. 5 Iowa State in the first few games. The first left only 42 full brackets, then the Rockets cut that down to just four.
By March Madness standards, this wasn’t the most chaotic first round. Every top 4 seed is through to the Sweet Sixteen, with two 12-5 upsets providing most of the chaos. It just goes to show the sheer mathematical challenge of 16-for-16 pitching games.
