March Madness surprises continue to break apart brackets
The slew of early NCAA tournament upsets hasn’t helped those clinging to the elusive hope of completing a perfect bracket.
Just 16 perfect brackets remained in the Quicken Loans Billion Dollar Bracket Challenge through Stanford’s upset of New Mexico on Friday, according to the company. Quicken Loans wouldn’t disclose how many entries were received, but contest rules capped the number at 15 million, one per person.
The going wasn’t much better in ESPN’s contest. Sixty-six perfect brackets of 11.01 million entries remained.
Fourteenth-seed Mercer stunning third-seed Duke did widespread damage in that contest, cutting the number of perfect brackets from 18,741 to 2,185, ESPN public relations said.
Mercer’s win did help some ESPN’s entrants: 1.5% of the brackets have the Macon, Ga., school advancing to the Sweet 16.
Twitter: @nathanfenno
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