March Madness: 14 perfect women's brackets remain after Sunday's second-round action
Only 14 perfect brackets out of 3.25 million remain on the ESPN Tournament Challenge after Sunday's second-round play in the women's NCAA Tournament.
The rest of the second round is Monday, and it's likely there won't be any perfect brackets by the end of the day.
Second-seeded Ohio State's exit early Sunday caused the most damage, causing 1,283 perfect brackets to drop to 154. Seventh-seeded Duke rallied from 16 points down to defeat the Buckeyes 75-63.
Just .007% were perfect on CBS' site by Sunday afternoon, but there was no immediate update by the final game. CBS does not release totals.
Sheldon Jacobson, who runs the Bracketodds website, said going with chalk in the women's bracket was more effective than on the men's side.
More women's NCAA Tournament coverage:
March Madness: Iowa State women fall in OT at Stanford
No March Madness in Iowa City: Hawkeyes run away from Holy Cross
That is the way the first round played out over the first two days. Higher seeds were 31-1, with No. 6 Louisville's 71-69 loss to No. 11 Middle Tennessee on Friday the one exception. The Cardinals' loss was responsible for 1.58 million brackets taking their first defeat — the highest of the first round.
"At the end of the day, you know a lot of the No. 1s are going to be in the Final Four," Jacobson said. "Occasionally, you'll get a two or a three, but it just doesn't happen very often. The men's game is far more unpredictable. We can get high-scoring brackets in the women's game, but so can everybody else."
South Carolina is the favorite among brackets submitted to the CBS site, but many also believe in Caitlin Clark and Iowa. The Gamecocks were chosen on 41.5% of CBS ballots to win the NCAA Tournament, followed by Iowa at 29.6%.
Then there is a serious drop-off, with USC next at 4.2%. Last year's champion, LSU, is on 3.2% of ballots.
