March Madness: Only 1 perfect bracket left after first round of women’s tournament

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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 in place 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 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’s extremely difficult to get the bracket right after one round, as Toledo just demonstrated. (AP Photo/Wade Payne)

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 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 out 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.

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By March Madness standards, this wasn’t the most chaotic first round. Every top 4 seed is through to the Sweet Sixteen, with 12-5 upsets providing most of the chaos. It just goes to show the sheer mathematical challenge of 16-for-16 pitching games.