It didn’t take long for "bracket madness" to overtake March Madness after the first round of the NCAA basketball tournament – only a tiny sliver of the millions of online brackets filled out by fans remained perfect on Thursday.
Few brackets could survive upsets like No. 13 Buffalo, from the Mid-American Conference, whipping No. 4-seed Arizona 89-68 or No. 11 Loyola-Chicago's stunning, buzzer-beating upset of No. 6-seed Miami 64-62.
NCAA.com, which is tracking all of the fan brackets from the Capital One March Madness Bracket Challenge Game – as well as bracket contests sponsored by the Bleacher Report, CBS, ESPN, and Yahoo – reported that fewer than one percent picked all the games correctly.
NCAA.com reported that many fans picked No. 10 Oklahoma to upset No. 7-seed Rhode Island. But the Rams prevailed in overtime, 83-78, knocking nearly 55 percent of the brackets from the ranks of the unbeaten – and that was the first game of the day.
It could have been worse. No. 6-seed Houston needed a last-second layup from guard Rob Gray to edge No. 11-seed San Diego State 67-65 Thursday night.
The ultimate bracket buster, though, continues to be Virginia Commonwealth with their run through the 2011 NCAA tournament. VCU didn't even show up on many brackets because they participated in the "First Four" play-in game before the full tournament started, but ended up reaching the Final Four before they lost to Butler in the national semifinals.
Hold those crumpled tickets. Friday’s games start at 12:15 p.m. and the last contest starts at 9:20 p.m., Eastern time.
NCAA.com said the odds of picking all 63 games in the tournament correctly could be as high as 1 in 9.2 quintillion. DePaul University professor Jeff Bergen, though, told the Business Insider he believes the odds are as "good" as 1 in 128 billion.
Odds at winning the Powerball Lottery's grand prize is 1 in 292 million and the Mega Millions grand prize stands at 1 in 302 million, for the record.