Pain.
Between No. 2 Kentucky’s shocking defeat to No. 15 Saint Peter’s and No. 5 Iowa’s loss to No. 12 Richmond, that’s what a lot of us were feeling Thursday as our brackets began to fall apart just hours into the NCAA tournament.
There were other, less surprising upsets in the Round of 64 that maybe wouldn’t have mattered much without the big ones. But mostly thanks to Kentucky — an Elite 8 and Final Four favorite of a lot of brackets — those smaller misses only compounded the big ones and decimated any ability for us to play catch up in pool play.
In another universe, where people actually expect to get every pick right, those hopes were mostly dashed too. After Thursday’s action, just 1.76% of brackets are still perfect, according to Bleacher Report. Yahoo Sports only has 59 perfect brackets left. ESPN has 743 left…out of more than 17 million.
1.76%. That's the amount of brackets that are still perfect 😬
Madness. pic.twitter.com/64vgQ6yqvt
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) March 17, 2022
DOWN GOES KENTUCKY! 🤯
Saint Peter's pulls off the huge upset and DESTROYS brackets! pic.twitter.com/nJr2bshw8Y
— Yahoo Fantasy Sports (@YahooFantasy) March 18, 2022
OUT OF OVER 17 MILLION 😳 pic.twitter.com/aw8Pyj3Wn2
— ESPN (@espn) March 18, 2022
That’s just a staggering level of ineptitude by us so-called college basketball fans…or by the teams who let us down. Guess it depends on how you look at it.
Better luck next year, y’all.
