2026 Men's NCAA Tournament Bracket: Latest Projection of the Field of 68
With stomachs still full from Feast Week showcases, it's time for another updated forecast of the 2026 men's NCAA tournament field.
From Battle 4 Atlantis to the Maui Invitational to the Players Era Festival and everything in between, there were a lot of impactful results that we'll be talking about from now straight through to Selection Sunday, as pretty much everyone was put to the test within the past eight days.
Teams such as Michigan, Iowa State and Vanderbilt passed their tests with flying colors and vaulted up the seed list as a result.
Others did not, as Georgetown, Ole Miss and Oregon sank like a lead balloon and have fallen out of the conversation for now.
Here's the real update, though: As of Monday morning, we finally have NET data.
We'll ease our way into the NCAA Evaluation Tool banter, barely mentioning it at all in this first projection of December. But as the season progresses and the actual results take precedence over things like KenPom rankings, trust that there will be plenty of talk of Quad-based records, Wins Above Bubble and the like.
(If you have any questions on what goes into the bracketology process or want to argue about a certain team's spot—or lack of a spot—in the projected field, you can find me on Twitter.)
With that out of the way, let's start with the full bracket before some brief commentary on the current state of the bubble and the top seed line. Following that, we have a full conference-by-conference rundown, highlighting some of the biggest changes from one week ago.
The Projected Bracket
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East Region (Washington, D.C.)
St. Louis, MO
No. 1 Purdue vs. No. 16 Norfolk State / Central Connecticut
No. 8 Texas Tech vs. No. 9 LSU
Tampa, FL
No. 4 Alabama vs. No. 13 UC San Diego
No. 5 Baylor vs. No. 12 High Point
Oklahoma City, OK
No. 3 Houston vs. No. 14 East Tennessee State
No. 6 Kentucky vs. No. 11 Saint Louis
Philadelphia, PA
No. 2 Connecticut vs. No. 15 Florida Gulf Coast
No. 7 Saint Mary's vs. No. 10 NC State
Midwest Region (Chicago)
Buffalo, NY
No. 1 Michigan vs. No. 16 Southern / SIU-Edwardsville
No. 8 SMU vs. No. 9 TCU
Tampa, FL
No. 4 Florida vs. No. 13 Belmont
No. 5 Kansas vs. No. 12 McNeese
Oklahoma City, OK
No. 3 Iowa State vs. No. 14 Troy
No. 6 Auburn vs. No. 11 Wisconsin
St. Louis, MO
No. 2 Louisville vs. No. 15 Marist
No. 7 Ohio State vs. No. 10 Santa Clara / Oklahoma State
South Region (Houston)
Greenville, SC
No. 1 Duke vs. No. 16 Colgate
No. 8 Missouri vs. No. 9 UCLA
Philadelphia, PA
No. 4 Vanderbilt vs. No. 13 UNC Wilmington
No. 5 Indiana vs. No. 12 Yale
Portland, OR
No. 3 BYU vs. No. 14 Oakland
No. 6 Utah State vs. No. 11 Akron
Buffalo, NY
No. 2 Michigan State vs. No. 15 North Dakota State
No. 7 St. John's vs. No. 10 Clemson
West Region (San Jose)
San Diego, CA
No. 1 Arizona vs. No. 16 Vermont
No. 8 Nebraska vs. No. 9 Arkansas
San Diego, CA
No. 4 Illinois vs. No. 13 Utah Valley
No. 5 North Carolina vs. No. 12 Tulsa
Greenville, SC
No. 3 Tennessee vs. No. 14 Liberty
No. 6 USC vs. No. 11 Colorado / George Mason
Portland, OR
No. 2 Gonzaga vs. No. 15 Northern Colorado
No. 7 Iowa vs. No. 10 Butler
Disclaimer: I won't start worrying about avoiding rematches of nonconference pairings in the first round until January. Please excuse any of those you may find.
Ranking the No. 1 Seeds
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4. Duke Blue Devils
3. Arizona Wildcats
2. Purdue Boilermakers
1. Michigan Wolverines
"We typically go at least six teams deep in this section. That hardly seems necessary at the moment, though, as these four have created some early separation from the pack."
That's a quote because it was the same case one week ago, albeit with different teams after what transpired in the Players Era Festival.
Houston was one of these four No. 1 seeds in our previous projection, but the Cougars lost to Tennessee and didn't look great against Syracuse or Notre Dame.
In Houston's stead, however, Michigan put on a show for the ages, obliterating each of San Diego State, Auburn and Gonzaga.
Time will tell whether that win over the Aztecs ends up going down as a Quad 1 result—SDSU debuted at No. 123 in the NET rankings—but the other two will.
The fact that they won those three games by an average margin of 37 points is impossible to ignore. And though we had them at No. 13 overall one week ago—and though neither Purdue nor Arizona did anything to merit dropping a spot—the Wolverines catapult straight to No. 1 overall.
Meanwhile, Duke picked up a third quality win away from home, adding Arkansas in Chicago to its previous victories over Kansas in New York City and Texas in Charlotte. The Blue Devils are thus far the hard-luck No. 4 overall seed, but with games against Florida and Michigan State in the next seven days, they could leapfrog Arizona and the two Big Ten schools by remaining undefeated.
Then again, Arizona and Purdue will host Auburn and Iowa State, respectively, on Saturday. If all four teams remain undefeated, the debate over their order could be even fiercer in a week.
10 Words on Each of the 10 'Bubbliest' Teams
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Fifth-to-Last In: Wisconsin Badgers (5-2)—Pummeled Providence, but the loss to TCU undid that good.
Fourth-to-Last In: Santa Clara Broncos (7-1)—Painful loss to Saint Louis, but rallied to smoke Minnesota.
Third-to-Last In: Oklahoma State Cowboys (7-0)—Won at Northwestern; tied for best start since 2006-07 season.
Second-to-Last In: Colorado Buffaloes (8-0)—Undefeated Buffs win Acrisure Holiday Classic; vault into the field.
Last Team In: George Mason Patriots (8-0)—Best start in program history; plays Saturday at Virginia Tech.
***Cut Line***
First Team Out: Wake Forest Demon Deacons (6-2)—Imagine if they had won that overtime game at Michigan.
Second Team Out: Texas Longhorns (6-2)—Getting one D-I win in Maui Invitational was major letdown.
Third Team Out: San Diego State Aztecs (3-3)—Lost three of first six for first time since 2002.
Fourth Team Out: Georgia Bulldogs (7-1)—Record looks nice, but record vs. Top 75 (0-1) does not.
Fifth Team Out: Virginia Cavaliers (6-1)—Big early bubble battle at Texas coming up on Wednesday.
ACC Summary
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6 Teams in the Projected Field: 4. Duke, 6. Louisville, 20. North Carolina, 32. SMU, 37. Clemson, 39. NC State
Also Considered: Wake Forest, Virginia, Miami
Biggest Development: Tough trip west for NC State and Syracuse
Eight days ago, NC State and Syracuse were each sitting at 4-0 in advance of the Maui Invitational and Players Era Festival, respectively. The Wolfpack were already in our projected field as a No. 7 seed. The Orange didn't quite make the cut, but superb defense through the first few weeks had them very much on the radar.
Unfortunately, those MTEs did not go according to plan.
As the only then-ranked team in the field, NC State really should have won the Maui Invitational. Instead, the Wolfpack immediately got routed by Seton Hall in the opener of that tournament and proceeded to also lose to Texas in the fifth-place game. What could have been an exclamation mark on a strong first November under Will Wade instead turned into a question mark about a team that simply might be bad on defense.
Meanwhile, Syracuse actually had about as impressive of a "three losses in three days" stretch as you can have, falling in overtime to Houston and battling Kansas for a solid 35 minutes before getting trounced by Iowa State in the 10 a.m. finale for which they found out the matchup about 13 hours before it began. And the Orange did it all without star big man Donnie Freeman.
All the same, three losses in three days is never a good thing, and they're now 4-3 without a win against a top 200 foe. And if they fail to beat Tennessee in the ACC/SEC Challenge on Tuesday, they're not going to have a single nonconference victory worth mentioning on Selection Sunday.
Big 12 Summary
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10 Teams in the Projected Field: 3. Arizona, 9. Iowa State, 10. Houston, 12. BYU, 18. Kansas, 19. Baylor, 30. Texas Tech, 34. TCU, 43. Oklahoma State, 44. Colorado
Also Considered: UCF
Biggest Development: Extremely Fruitful Players Era Festival
While we all argued about and grappled with the tiebreaking principles for the seeding in the final round of the Players Era Festival, one thing that wasn't confusing was which conference had the most impressive showing at the event.
Though the Big Ten's Michigan won the biggest chunk of NIL with its dominant display, both Kansas (against Notre Dame, Syracuse and Tennessee) and Iowa State (against St. John's, Creighton and Syracuse) went 3-0, while Baylor (beating Creighton and San Diego State; losing to St. John's) and Houston (beating Syracuse and Notre Dame; losing to Tennessee) each went 2-1.
Houston's showing was actually a bit concerning. Both JoJo Tugler and Isiah Harwell are sensational defensive assets, but neither one provides much of anything as a scorer. However, the Cougars were 4-3 at this time last year and proceeded to win 31 of their next 32 games, so we're inclined to preach patience here while dropping them from the No. 1 seed line.
Iowa State looked fantastic, though, even with Tamin Lipsey missing the latter two games. And for Kansas to go 3-0 without Darryn Peterson was pretty darn impressive. Both of those teams climbed several spots on the overall seed list.
Elsewhere in the Big 12, BYU beat Miami and Dayton to win the ESPN Events Invitational, TCU knocked off both Florida and Wisconsin to win the Rady Children's Invitational, Colorado beat San Francisco and Washington en route to winning the Acrisure Holiday Classic and Arizona State made it to the championship of the Maui Invitational before falling to USC.
All told, it was a mighty fine Feast Week for the Big 12, aside from Cincinnati's ugly home loss to Eastern Michigan.
Big East Summary
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3 Teams in the Projected Field: 5. Connecticut, 27. St. John's, 38. Butler
Also Considered: Villanova, Creighton, Seton Hall
Biggest Development: Lumps taken left and right
Listen, it wasn't all bad for the Big East this week. Connecticut knocked off Illinois at Madison Square Garden on Friday. Seton Hall was the pleasant surprise of the Maui Invitational with a quality win over NC State. And St. John's did score a solid (and convincing) win over Baylor in the Players Era Festival.
However, the Johnnies book-ended that win with losses to Iowa State and Auburn.
Creighton also lost to Iowa State and Baylor before closing out the Players Era Festival with a win over Oregon, which barely cracked the top 200 in the initial NET rankings.
Providence got pummeled by both Wisconsin and Florida to drop to 4-4.
Marquette also fell to 4-4 with a loss to Oklahoma. Those two are now a combined 0-8 vs. KenPom top 100 foes.
And maybe most painful of all, early-season darling Georgetown came away from the ESPN Events Invitational with an 0-2 record, losing in overtime to Dayton before getting blown out by Miami.
Things continue to not look great for this league as a whole.
While each of the other four power conference has at least eight Quad 1 wins and at least a .296 winning percentage in those opportunities, the Big East is 4-16 (.200) vs. Q1 and 10-23 (.303) against Quads 1 and 2.
Moreover, more than half of the league debuted outside the NET top 100, with only UConn, Butler and St. John's landing higher than 50th. Without a strong run through December, opportunities for quality wins in January and February will be scarce.
Big Ten Summary
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11 Teams in the Projected Field: 1. Michigan, 2. Purdue, 7. Michigan State, 16. Illinois, 17. Indiana, 23. USC, 25. Ohio State, 28. Iowa, 29. Nebraska, 35. UCLA, 40. Wisconsin
Also Considered: Northwestern, Washington
Biggest Development: A Tale of Two Players Era Festivals
Like the Big 12, there were four teams from the Big Ten in the Players Era Festival.
One of those teams put on an unbelievable show that instantly altered the national landscape of contenders. That, of course, was Michigan, dismantling San Diego State by 40, Auburn by 30 and Gonzaga by 40. It was a three-game stretch of dominance the likes of which have perhaps never been seen, vaulting the Wolverines from No. 15 on KenPom all the way to No. 1 (by an overwhelming margin, no less) in the span of about 48 hours.
The other three teams were Maryland, Oregon, and Rutgers, who went 2-7 with a pair of wins over UNLV and six losses by a double-digit margin.
Inexplicably, Michigan went 3-0 with a plus-110 scoring margin, yet the Big Ten went 5-7 with a minus-8 scoring margin.
Oregon had been in our projected field while Maryland was at least on the fringe of consideration, but that's no longer the case for either.
Outside the bottom third of the league, though, it was a mostly good week. USC ran through Boise State, Seton Hall and Arizona State to win the Maui Invitational, though may not have picked up a single truly quality win in the process. Same goes for Iowa winning the Acrisure Classic against Ole Miss and Grand Canyon. But Michigan State kind of blew out North Carolina in Fort Myers while Nebraska just keeps on winning, now up to 8-0 for the year.
For most of the Big Ten, conference play begins this week. And pour one out for Rutgers, who gets Purdue on Tuesday and Michigan on Saturday.
SEC Summary
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9 Teams in the Projected Field: 11. Tennessee, 13. Vanderbilt, 14. Alabama, 15. Florida, 21. Kentucky, 24. Auburn, 31. Missouri, 33. LSU, 36. Arkansas
Also Considered: Texas, Georgia, Ole Miss, Texas A&M
Biggest Development: Vanderbilt makes a statement amid league-wide struggles
The early narrative out of the SEC remains the sheer lack of quality wins. They did pick up a pair of great ones in the Players Era Festival, with Tennessee beating Houston one day before Auburn ran away from St. John's. Texas' victory over NC State in the Maui Invitational fifth-place game looks solid, too.
Even with those games factored in, though, the SEC is 8-22 overall against the KenPom top 60, with six teams (Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, LSU, Mississippi State and South Carolina) who have yet to beat a top 100 foe.
In fact, if you take out the home games against teams outside the KenPom top 150—which any SEC team ought to be able to win 49 times out of 50—as well as Texas' win over D-II Chaminade and Missouri's road win over KenPom No. 312 Howard, the SEC entered play on Saturday at 24-26 overall for the year.
One of the exceptions to the rule, though, has been Vanderbilt, which built on its hot start to the year with a strong run through the Battle 4 Atlantis. The undefeated Commodores started slow on Wednesday with a five-point win over Western Kentucky, but proceeded to smoke VCU by 15 in the semifinals and Saint Mary's by 25 in the championship.
Duke Miles put up a combined total of 73 points, 11 rebounds, 10 assists and seven steals, while senior big man Jalen Washington went for a career-high 19 points off the bench against the Gaels.
Vandy broke through last year for a rare NCAA tournament appearance, but it never looked anything close to this good. The 'Dores legitimately might be the team to beat in the SEC, and KenPom doesn't have them projected for a loss until Feb. 28.
Mid-Majors Summary (A10, AAC, MVC, MWC, WCC)
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8 Teams in the Projected Field: 8. Gonzaga, 22. Utah State, 26. Saint Mary's, 41. Saint Louis, 42. Santa Clara, 45. George Mason, 50. Tulsa, 51. Belmont
Also Considered: San Diego State, VCU, George Washington, Dayton, Colorado State
Biggest Development: Saint Louis clips Santa Clara in an early "BracketBusters" sort of affair
Of all the fascinating individual matchups and overarching storylines of Feast Week, probably the most important game of all from a "might impact NCAA tournament selection for both teams" was the showdown between undefeated Saint Louis and undefeated Santa Clara in the Acrisure Invitational.
Both teams entered the game ranked right around 50th on KenPom, each already knowing that this may well be their fifth-most noteworthy game of the entire regular season. Santa Clara will get two games apiece against Gonzaga and Saint Mary's in WCC play. Saint Louis will also get double dips against VCU and Dayton in A-10 play. But this was the big chance in nonconference play to prove something.
And though technically someone was required to lose, both teams proved that they belong in the at-large conversation in a game that Saint Louis won by one on a late Kellen Thames bucket.
Unfortunately for the Billikens, they turned around and suffered an agonizing loss to Stanford in a championship game that will likely be remembered for years in the "foul up three" debate. Meanwhile, Santa Clara bounced back with a win over Minnesota in which the Broncos led by as many as 31 points.
Both SLU and SCU remain right on the bubble, and could be there all season long. We shall see whether the Billikens' head-to-head victory ends up making a difference in March.
Other 21 Leagues Summary
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21 Teams in the Projected Field: 46. Akron, 47. Yale, 48. McNeese, 49. High Point, 52. Utah Valley, 53. UC San Diego, 54. UNC Wilmington, 55. Liberty, 56. Troy, 57. East Tennessee State, 58. Oakland, 59. Marist, 60. Northern Colorado, 61. Florida Gulf Coast, 62. North Dakota State, 63. Colgate, 64. Vermont, 65. Southern, 66. SIU-Edwardsville, 67. Norfolk State, 68. Central Connecticut
Also Considered: N/A
Biggest Development: List of remaining undefeateds quickly dwindling
At a nationwide level, there are about two dozen undefeated teams still standing. It's a little too early to really dive into setting odds on who will be the last team with a zero in the loss column, but give it another week or so and we'll get there.
Most of those teams hail from power conferences, though, with the Big Ten alone responsible for seven of the spots on that list.
From these "other 21 leagues," we're down to just four, and we'd better shout them out before it's too late.
UC San Diego Tritons (7-0): Everyone's favorite Cinderella candidate heading into last year's dance lost its head coach and its six leading scorers...and might be even better? UCSD won the Adventure Bracket of the ESPN Events Invitational, beating each of Temple, Bradley and Towson by double digits. D-II transfer Leo Beath is averaging just a shade under 20 points per game for one of the best shooting teams in the nation.
New Mexico State Aggies (6-0): Between Liberty's two losses to Towson and Bradley and NMSU's 6-0 start to the year, might the Aggies be the team to beat in Conference USA? They've already won their rivalry game against New Mexico and scored a nice victory over UC Irvine in Mexico this past week. It's the first time they've started 6-0 since 1969-70—when they went 27-3 and made it to the Final Four.
Miami-Ohio RedHawks (6-0): Every remaining undefeated team has faced at least one KenPom Top 200 foe...except for the RedHawks. And they won't face one until traveling to Wright State on Dec. 16. As such, there's a decent chance they'll be one of the last five undefeateds standing, albeit with virtually no at-large potential whatsoever.
Buffalo Bulls (8-0): Say this much for Buffalo: They seek out contact as well as anyone. Wisconsin transfer Daniel Freitag is averaging nearly 20 points and 10 free-throw attempts per game. And as a team, they're averaging about 23 points from the charity stripe. That was huge in the road win over DePaul, and even more so in the home win over Vermont, in which the Bulls shot 31-for-37 from the free-throw line.
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