This year, thousands of students across the country filled out brackets for the Coke Zero Sugar March Madness men’s bracket challenge, but Clemson freshman Timmy Klepper won the challenge with a nearly perfect bracket.

Klepper, a sophomore landscape architecture major, won the first place prize after he submitted three brackets. Each participant’s most accurate bracket was selected, which is how Klepper’s 1550-point bracket managed to outscore the thousands of other submissions.  

The bracket challenge by Coke was a university-partnered competition in which college student participants fill out an NCAA basketball tournament bracket. Twenty-five NCAA universities are selected each year for the partnership challenge.    

“I couldn’t believe it when I won,” he said. “I decided to do [the bracket challenge] because it was through the University, but I did not think I would actually win it all.”   

Klepper correctly predicted half of the sweet sixteen and the entire elite eight, final four and championship round. 

Prizes were awarded to top spots, such as Apple AirPods, $500 airline vouchers and cash. 

Clemson University placed ninth overall in the bracket challenge.