2025 Was the Chalkiest Tournament in 40 Years

All four 1-seeds made the Final Four for just the second time ever. No team seeded lower than 10 reached the Sweet 16. The bracket gods took a year off.

The big picture: After years of upsets and chaos, the 2025 tournament played almost exactly as the seeds predicted. It was the most orderly tournament since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985.

Published: April 8, 2025

If you filled out your 2025 bracket with mostly chalk - higher seeds advancing in most games - you probably did well. Really well.

The 2025 tournament was, by almost every measure, the least upset-prone tournament in modern history. Only four games qualified as upsets by the NCAA's definition (a win by a team seeded five or more spots lower). Three of those came in the first round. None came in the Sweet 16. None came in the Elite Eight.

All four 1-seeds - Florida, Duke, Houston, and Auburn - reached the Final Four. That had only happened once before, in 2008. The Elite Eight featured four 1-seeds, three 2-seeds, and one 3-seed, tying the 2007 tournament for the lowest combined seed total in the round's history.

For the first time since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, the Sweet 16 was composed entirely of teams from the four major conferences: SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, and ACC. No mid-major made it to the second weekend. The closest was 10-seed Arkansas, which upset 2-seed St. John's in the second round before falling to Houston in the Sweet 16.

The lack of chaos had a notable effect on bracket pools. Because the tournament played so close to seed expectations, the margins between brackets were razor thin. In many pools, the difference between first and tenth place came down to a handful of picks in the Elite Eight and Final Four, not the usual first-round upset calls.

That said, there were still moments. McNeese and Colorado State both won as 12-seeds in the first round. Drake, an 11-seed, beat Missouri for its first tournament win since 1971. Arkansas's run to the Sweet 16 as a 10-seed gave bracket pools their one real wild card.

But the overall story was order. Top seeds dominated. The best teams played the best basketball. And for one year, March Madness was less about madness and more about the teams that deserved to be there making good on their potential.

In short: The 2025 tournament had just four total upsets - the fewest in modern history. All four 1-seeds reached the Final Four for just the second time ever. It was a rough year for Cinderella stories but a great year for anyone who picked chalk.