Who Are the Most Accurate March Madness Bracketologists?

Just about everywhere you look on the internet from January to March, you’ll find some college basketball prognosticator making projections for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. The practice has become so common in the last 15 or so years that it’s earned its own name.

Bracketology.

It’s a science and an art, though not quite a collegiate major. And times have changed, from predictors using the old eyeball test to a data-driven analysis that covers just about every metric one can imagine. Anyone can make a bracket prediction, but some have been proven to be a little more accurate than others.

Let’s examine the best of the best, according to the folks at BracketMatrix.com. 

Joe Lunardi, ESPN

Lunardi is credited with bringing bracketology into the mainstream. He created his first bracket publicly in 1995 when he published in Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook. His hometown Philadelphia Inquirer is credited as first calling him a “bracketologist” and by the time Lunardi’s brackets were being posted on CNN, they had become a thing.

Lunardi partnered with ESPN in 1997 and took a full-time role with the organization in 2019 and he correctly picked all 65 teams in 2008. And while his scores in recent years have him ranked just 125th out of 186 bracket regulars, his 19 years of data and status as the godfather of the business earn him a spot of recognizance.

Warren Nolan, Self-Published

Nolan’s background as a computer programmer in the United States Air Force has served him well. In his day job, Nolan works for Northrop Grumman as a Radar Systems analyst. To most Americans, the Oklahoma native is known as the most accurate individual bracketologist on the planet.

He’s been creating brackets and analyzing and producing college basketball, baseball and football RPI rankings on his website since 2001. And over the past five years’ worth of brackets, he’s the second most accurate bracketologist.

Jeff Borzello, ESPN

Borzello has been a sportswriter since 2007 and with ESPN since 2014. He hasn't usurped Lunardi's status as the resident bracketologist, but he's been at it for 19 years and his predictions have been spot on lately as he ranks 24th over the last five years.

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Bracketometry, Self-Published

The most accurate group of predictors over the last five seasons belongs to the folks over at Bracketometry. It’s unclear just who is involved with the picking of such brackets as the organization’s website has little information outside of a chart showing the current day’s projected bracket. But it’s hard to argue with results as the six-year outfit ranks at the top of Bracket Matrix’s list.