Exploring The Best NCAA March Madness Brackets
Initially Published: March 15, 2026 with brackets locked in March 18, 2026
Latest Update: April 7, 2026 with outcome of the Championship Match
BracketOdds vs. The World
At the end of the tournament, we evaluated every bracket we generated to answer what was the absolute best bracket we produced?
Best Overall Bracket
Broadening our analysis to our full data set -- a total of 200,903,596 unique brackets -- we found that bracket #40,837,040 was our top performer. It achieved a score of 1,900, which is 30 points higher than the best bracket from the ESPN tournament:
The full breakdown of our top brackets summarized:
| Top UIUC BracketOdds Brackets | Top ESPN Brackets |
|---|---|
|
1 bracket scores 1900 1 bracket scores 1890 5 brackets scores 1880 13 brackets scores 1870 |
No brackets scores 1900 No brackets scores 1890 No brackets scores 1880 2 brackets score 1870 |
Our "Lucky Brackets" Submitted to ESPN
Among our generated pool, we found that there were exactly five specific brackets that the BracketOdds model produced independently four times. We designated these as our "lucky brackets" and, at the suggestion of alumna Michelle Ru, submitted them to the ESPN Tournament Challenge.
While the best "lucky bracket" did not do as well as we did in the men's tournament, the top bracket still had an impression 1,300 point finish:
Championship Match Update: Officially Outperformed Every ESPN-Submitted Bracket
Coming up to the Championship Match, the University of Illinois' BracketOdds Brackets have officially outperformed every ESPN-submitted bracket! 🎉
Here's tbe breakdown of the brackets as we go into the championship game:
| Tournament Champion | Top UIUC BracketOdds Brackets | Top ESPN Brackets |
|---|---|---|
| South Carolina Wins |
5 brackets scores 1890 9 brackets scores 1880 |
No brackets score 1890 2 brackets score 1880 |
| UCLA |
1 bracket scores 1900 1 bracket scores 1890 5 brackets scores 1880 13 brackets scores 1870 |
No brackets scores 1900 No brackets scores 1890 No brackets scores 1880 2 brackets score 1870 |
Our Championship Brackets
Our five brackets that beat and nine brackets that tie the top ESPN bracket, if South Carolina wins the tournament:
Our seven brackets that beat and 13 brackets that tie the top ESPN bracket, if UCLA wins the tournament:
Final Four Update: A Nearly Perfect Bracket
At the Final Four, we lost our perfect bracket by just a single game -- our very best bracket currently has 1,910 maximum points possible and outperforming every bracket on ESPN:
Additionally, we have two brackets with 1,900 maximum points possible (having only two incorrect predictions):
Sweet Sixteen Update: Thirty-Four Brackets Remain Perfect Going into the Sweet 16
In the women's bracket, we have 34 still-perfect brackets going into the Sweet 16! Out of our 201,000,000 brackets, here are five of the brackets that are still perfect going into the Sweet 16:
Nerding Out With Every Bracket
In the interface below, click any number of teams you want to lock in to see all brackets that include your selection.
- You do NOT need to select all teams -- just the ones you want to filter!
- See the brackets that match your selection below.
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Bracket Results
Based on your selections, we'll search from every bracket generated using the following pattern:
Acknowledgements
The model used to generate brackets found is based off of the 2020 Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports pape "Models for generating NCAA men’s basketball tournament bracket pools". A huge thanks to Professor Sheldon Jacobson for encouraging this crazy idea with his BracketOdds model over lunch and to Professor Ian Ludden for sharing this paper, the source code for the model, and the model weights with us and his continued work on this at Rose Hulman.