My definition of a Bracket Buster:  an 6+ seed team that reaches the Elite 8.  Most bracket fillers conservatively stick to the highest seeds when picking their Elite 8 teams, and rightly so – 81% of all Elite 8 teams were seeded 1-5.  So when a 6+ seed team reaches the Elite 8, most people’s brackets are busted.  Based on simulating the tournament thousands of times with my sweet computer model (click here to see just how amazing it is at predicting NCAA Tournament outcomes), here are the most likely Bracket Busters.

• In testing the model with past tournaments (2013-2017), the most likely Bracket Buster each year did, in fact, reach the Elite 8 in 2013-2016
• 2017’s actual Bracket Busters were the 6th and 8th most likely on the list