The lone perfect bracket has made it through to the Sweet 16.
A single bracket picked every single game correctly on Monday to close out the second round of the women's NCAA tournament, bringing their record to 48-0 so far. That entry in Yahoo's women's bracket contest — trisdyn's Rad Bracket — will now enter the regional rounds with the very rare dream of completing a perfect bracket still very much alive.
Monday's slate of games was pretty straightforward. There wasn't a single upset to close out the second round of the tournament, though a few teams came close. No. 3 UConn snuck past Syracuse behind a 32-point performance from star Paige Bueckers. The Huskies had to fight off a late rally from the Orange and star Dyaisha Fair, who actually moved up to No. 3 on the all-time scoring list in the loss.
Then on Monday night, Caitlin Clark and No. 1 Iowa survived a scare and narrowly beat West Virginia. The Hawkeyes, despite making just a single field goal in the fourth quarter, beat the Mountaineers 64-54 behind a 32-point night from Clark — who passed Kelsey Plum and broke the NCAA's single-season scoring record. The Hawkeyes will now take on No. 5 Colorado in the Sweet 16 on Saturday.
USC pulled away from Kansas in the second half in Los Angeles to reach the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1994, and then Gonzaga handled Utah without any issue in the last game of the night.
There were only 57 perfect brackets that made it out of the opening round of the tournament, though that was quickly cut down to just one after several upsets on Sunday — including No. 7 Duke's win over No. 2 Ohio State.
The perfect bracket has South Carolina beating Iowa by a score of 90-88 in the national championship, and had the other two No. 1 seeds Texas and USC making the Final Four. So far, so good.
All men’s perfect brackets eliminated early
While trisdyn is perfect on the women’s side, every single men’s perfect bracket has already been eliminated.
No. 13 Yale’s upset over Auburn on Friday knocked out the final perfect bracket before the first round of the tournament had even ended. Just 0.1% of entries survived the first day of play, thanks largely to No. 14 Oakland’s upset over No. 3 Kentucky. Since then, though, the men’s side has been largely straightforward. Every single No. 1 and No. 2 seed made it through to the Sweet 16.