March Madness 2023: After a wild first three days, there are no perfect brackets left for the men’s and women’s tournament

Not a single perfect clip survived March Madness’ wild first weekend. No. 5 Oklahoma’s blowout win over No. 12 Portland in Saturday’s NCAA women’s tournament blew up the remaining perfect CBS Sports women’s staples. This comes just a day after all the perfect man clips are ripped to pieces.

The No. 16-seeded Fairleigh Dickinson’s excitement against No. 1-seeded Purdue on Friday night was the game that blew up the remaining perfect men’s brackets on CBSSports.com. The FDU victory was only the second 16-1 win in NCAA men’s tournament history.

And even before the FDU’s great excitement as they entered Friday’s NCAA tournament, only 0.002 percent of the men’s brackets on CBSSports.com were perfect.

That percentage actually fell to 0.001% when Xavier, No. 3 seed, narrowly held on to 14th state Kennesaw (72-67). But actually, it’s not exactly shocking that zero perfect brackets remain, given the chaos that March Madness Day 1 produced.

The two biggest surprises on Thursday came in the South region.

In just the second game in which the tip was tipped, Furman was able to defeat No. 4 Virginia in one of the most shocking finals in recent memory. In the final seconds, Virginia’s Kihei Clark was caught by the Furman defense and attempted to heave the ball across the court to time out. However, Furman was able to intercept Clark’s pass and JP Pegues scored with a game-winning three with just 2.2 seconds left to give the Paladins an upset 68-67 win.

Later Thursday afternoon, the brackets were further blown when No. 2 Arizona was turned upside down by No. 15 seed Princeton 59-55. It was a tough fight throughout, with the Tigers trailing by just a single point at halftime despite going up against the Pac 12 tournament champions. With eight minutes left, Arizona took a 51-41 lead, but Princeton didn’t throw in the towel. Instead, the Tigers finished the game on a 9-0 run, keeping the Wildcats scoreless through the final 4:44 of the contest.

The women’s tournament has been just as unpredictable as the men’s. Georgia, Mississippi State, South Dakota State, Princeton, Miami, Florida Gulf Coast and Toledo all won their opening-round games despite being the lower-seeded teams.

Remember: They call it March Madness for a reason.