Busted Brackets: Looking into how many perfect brackets remain after a slew of upsets in March Madness

The first March Madness brackets are believed to have been filled out in 1977. The first NCAA Tournament took place in 1939 but did not expand to a field of 64 until 1985. They expanded to a field of 68 in 2011.

Millions of brackets are filled out annually for the tournament. There has never been a bracket that has perfectly predicted the results of every game. According to the NCAA, the odds of guessing a perfect bracket are 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 if you make each selection based on a coin flip. The odds are 1 in 120.2 billion if you have a casual knowledge of basketball.

It's basically impossible to predict the tournament. This year has been no different. The final remaining perfect bracket crashed and burned when No.16 seed Fairleigh Dickinson took down No. 1 Purdue. This is only the second time in history that a No. 16 seed has taken down a No. 1 seed.

The longest streak of a perfect bracket occurred in 2019 when an Ohio man correctly predicted the results of every game leading up to the Sweet 16. The 49 games that he correctly predicted is a record that will stand for quite some time.

How many upsets were there this year?

In the opening round of the tournament this year, there were six upsets. The most notable was Fairleigh Dickinson over Purdue. But No. 15 seed Princeton taking down No. 2 seed Arizona and No. 13 seed Furman beating No.4 seed Virginia was also noteworthy. The other three upsets (Penn State, Auburn, FAU) were No.9 seed vs No.10 seed matchups

There have been a total of 12 upsets in this year's NCAA tournament, which sits right around the average of 12.4 upsets per tournament.

It is a unique combination of teams remaining. The No. 4 seed UConn is the highest remaining seed in the tournament. They will face off against No. 5 seed Miami for a spot in the NCAA tournament championship game. No. 5 seed San Diego State will go head-to-head with No. 9 seed Florida Atlantic in their Final Four matchup.

UConn is the only remaining program to have previously won a national championship. This has been one of the most unexpected and thrilling tournaments in NCAA history, even though the number of upsets isn't overwhelming.

The Final Four will take place on Saturday. The NCAA tournament champion will be crowned on Monday.