Four days into the madness, the 2025 NCAA Division One Men’s Basketball Championship has been characterized by higher seed dominance, blowout results, and an atypical lack of shocks. The highest seeds to win a game were #12s McNeese and Colorado State, and the highest seed remaining in the tournament is #10 New Mexico. In comparison, the last 4 tournaments have seen wins from 13, 14, 15, and even 16 seeds, as well as multiple 11 seeds reaching the Final Four.
However, the results have been as impossible to correct as always, with zero perfects remaining in official competitions serving as a reminder that anything can happen in March. Arkansas’s upset of St. Johns was the biggest upset by seeding of the first two rounds, and Derik Queen’s buzzer beater for Maryland against Colorado State was a last second boon – or curse – depending on your pick to win.
There is still hope for many of those who competed in The Page’s Bracket Challenge, as all but one bracket contain a national champion pick who is still in the field. Three competitors – Hannah Adams, Kelsie Manugo, and Barrett White – are tied for first with 47 points, having picked most of the games correctly so far. Mason Olds and Brian Lewis are third and fourth with 46 and 43 points, respectively.
The upset of St. Johns was one of the most impactful to brackets, with bracket challenge entrants having them reaching as far as the national championship game. Such an upset for Duke, however, could knock out the numerous brackets which had them picked to win it all. The Blue Devils were the most popular choice for champion in The Page contest, followed by Florida and Auburn.
With the first and second rounds completed, a quarter of the original 64 will play in the Sweet Sixteen, starting on March 27. #1 Seeds Auburn, Florida, Duke, and Houston survived to this point, though Florida had a tight battle against the two-time defending champion Uconn Huskies.
The Elite Eight will follow the Sweet Sixteen, and precede the Final Four. The tournament is set to wrap up on April 7 at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.
Leaderboard
1. Hannah Adams – 47
1. Kelsie Manugo – 47
1. Barrett White – 47
4. Mason Olds – 46
5. Brian Lewis- 43
Challenge Rules
Brackets will be scored under the traditional 1-2-4-8-16-32 format, where points won for each individual game increases across the tournament and the number of teams in a round multiplied by the number of points per correct pick always equals 64. Therefore, picking the champion and Final Four teams correctly is usually going to constitute a highly successful bracket. The maximum number of points that could be won is 192 in this system, but that would require a correct pick for every single game, and no recorded March Madness bracket has ever been perfect. In fact, the NCAA puts the odds of a relatively-researched bracket being perfect at one in 120.2 Billion.
Should a tie occur between first place competitors in either of the pools, the tiebreaker will fall to the entry with the correct national champion pick. Further tiebreakers, if needed, will be the most correct teams in the championship game, Final Four, Elite Eight, and Sweet Sixteen.
