Look Who’s Leading the TVNewser Bracket Challenge After Round One

The 2017 NCAA Men’s Tournament Round of 64 was a relatively predictable one from a results standpoint. There were a few close, exciting games (USC over SMU, and Northwestern’s first-ever NCAA Tournament win), but out of the 32 games played on Thursday and Friday, lower seeds won only six — and according to Vegas odds, most of those don’t even qualify as actual upsets. According to NCAA.com, going into Saturday’s play, there are a little over 200 perfect brackets left on the major, trackable online games.

Unfortunately none of our TVNewsers are part of that exclusive 200+ club, but the 2017 TVNewser March Madness Bracket Challenge remains wide open. CNBC, which traditionally has a major presence in our pool, is again leading the early charge.

Sara Eisen, co-anchor of Squawk on the Street and Worldwide Exchange, is currently No. 1, thinking outside of the box by correctly predicting upset wins by No. 11 Xavier over No. 6 Maryland, No. 11 Rhode Island over No. 6 Creighton, and everyone’s trendy 12/5 upset: Middle Tennessee State over Minnesota. That said, Eisen also has SMU making it to the Sweet 16, a team which lost a heartbreaker to Southern Cal. Will that come back to bite her?

Fellow CNBC newser Eric Chemi, the network’s senior editor at large for data journalism, is right behind Eisen in the No. 2 spot. Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade, Squawk Box co-anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin, NBC News national correspondent Peter Alexander, and CNBC digital editorial staffer Matt Rosoff, are tied for 3rd place. But as you can see below, it’s truly anyone’s game!

Here’s a look at our top 25 going into the weekend: