March Madness is one of the most entertaining sports playoffs of the year as tens of millions of brackets are filled out with hopes of a perfect bracket. But every year, there are multiple upsets that ruin everyone’s dream of a perfect bracket. Here are the top 7 bracket busters of 2023.
#1. #16 Fairleigh Dickinson beating #1 Purdue
#1 seeds are 150-2 all time in the tournament against #16 seeds. This caused almost everyone to pick Purdue winning this first round matchup. Purdue was also playing well coming off of a Big Ten championship. This led to 31.6% of brackets in the ESPN tournament challenge to put Purdue in the final four. So this made the Boilermakers first round exit the #1 bracket buster.
#2. #15 Princeton beating #2 Arizona
#2 seeds are 10-138 all time in the tournament against #15 seeds. Only 6.6% of ESPN brackets picked Princeton to win this matchup and 11.1% of brackets had Arizona in the finals. Arizona was another team coming in hot with a Pac-12 championship to their name. This huge upset that almost no one picked made this the #2 bracket buster.
#3. #15 Princeton beating #7 Missouri
After stunning the world and beating #2 Arizona, #15 Princeton didn’t take their foot off the gas and beat #7 Missouri. This marks the 4th time ever that a #15 made it into the sweet 16. Out of all ESPN brackets, only 1.86% of them had Princeton making it this far. This second win for the Tigers is the #3 bracket buster.
#4. #8 Arkansas beating #1 Kansas
#1 Kansas was a heavy favorite to win the entire tournament with around 11% picking them to win the whole thing. They were returning champs and had plenty of talent to win the whole thing. The Razorback taking down the #1 seed makes this win the #4 bracket buster.
#5. #7 Michigan St. beating #2 Marquette
#2 Marquette is another team on this list that went into the tournament on a win streak. They won the Big East tournament and were set up well to make the final four with Purdue losing. Michigan St. has been historically good but few people expected a sweet 16 run from the Spartans. This loss for the Big East champions make this the #5 bracket buster.
#6. #13 Furman beating #4 Virginia
This is another double digit team beating a highly ranked, large conference school. This was the first big upset of the tournament and it came in exciting fashion with a last second 3 pointer. Despite the large seed difference, a small portion of people had #13 Furman winning because of their high powered offense. The #13 seeds win makes this the #6 bracket buster.
#7. #4 Tennessee beating #5 Duke
Looking at the seeds, you would assume that this is not in fact an upset, but there were a lot of brackets picking #5 Duke to go very far in the tournament. The Blue Devils were ACC champions and entered the tournament with a 9 game win streak. #4 Tennessee has also suffered some injuries so a lot of people picked Duke. The injury-struck Volunteers beating the Blue Devils makes this the #7 bracket buster.
