After a year without him, March Madness returned in a big way on Friday with a serial no. 15, a serial no. 13, chap. 12 and chap. 11, all advancing to the second round of the NCAA tournament.
And with that came the return of the “parenthesis breakers” – the annual search for the perfect prognosis, which inevitably breaks down and results in the hypothetical – or literal, for some – shredding of the parentheses.
There were 14.7 million brackets entered in the ESPN Challenge Tournament before the start of the NCAA Tournament. After only 16 games, only 108 remain flawless.
The first great success came with the amazing upset of no. 15 of Oral Roberts in Ohio no. 2, as 13,492,289 brackets (95.2%) prompted the Buckeyes to advance to the second round. In fact, the Buckeyes were the sixth most successful team in ESPN brackets.
For those lucky enough to choose Oral Roberts, many have doubled – with 272,122 brackets with the Golden Eagles advancing to Sweet 16.
The traditional upset of 12 to 5 years continued, with Oregon taking down No. 5 in Tennessee. Of all the 12 seeds in the ESPN Tournament Challenge, beavers were actually the fewest (21.5%), below Winthrop (26.8%), UCSB (27.6%) and trendy 12-seed pick Georgetown (42 , 7%).
The next huge success of the parenthesis group was provided by the number 13 North Texas, which brought down the number 4 Purdue. Only 12.5% of all entries chose the green average to advance and almost half of all brackets (49.7%) had Boilermakers who reached Sweet 16.
The final upset came with Syracuse eliminating San Diego No. 6, although Challenge Tournament players weren’t too surprised, as 41.8% of participants chose Syracuse to advance to the second round, the most large percentage of the 11 seeds. However, for those who choose the state of San Diego, the loss is really severe, as 23.5% of these brackets had the Aztecs reaching Sweet 16.
For 108 participants, the search for perfection continues on Saturday.