Early Predictions for the Champions of Every 2026 Men's College Basketball Conference Tournament

College basketball's misleadingly named Championship Week is just around the corner, with the first games of the Horizon League tournament coming up this Monday to kick off that fortnight of bid-clinching insanity.

Before the regular season starts wrapping up for many teams this weekend, though, we're giving you early picks for the winner of every conference tournament.

After all, those Jerome ballots aren't going to fill themselves out.

Though we're offering predictions for all 31 leagues, we've broken them up into definite one-bid leagues (17), very likely one-bid leagues (five), mid-majors with multi-bid potential (four), and then the power five leagues each get a section of their own.

Unless otherwise noted, statistics and records are current through the start of play on Tuesday, Feb. 24.

Definite One-Bid Leagues (Part 1 of 3)

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Hofstra's Cruz Davis

America East: UMBC Retrievers

Most leagues hold their full tournaments at a single, not-always-exactly-neutral site. But along with the NEC and the Patriot League, the America East is one of the glorious few that spreads its tournament out for a week or more and gives home-court advantage to the higher seed in each round. As such, the No. 1 seed holds a key edge, and UMBC is projected to secure that top spot. It would be the Retrievers' first NCAA tournament appearance since shocking the world in 2018.

Atlantic Sun: Central Arkansas Bears

Prior to an overtime loss at Florida Gulf Coast on Saturday, Central Arkansas hadn't lost in six weeks, on quite the collision course with projected A-Sun champ, Austin Peay. Give us the Bears, though, who are enjoying the best season in program history. They went 53-129 over the previous six seasons, and likely conference POY Camren Hunter will get them across the finish line.

Big Sky: Portland State Vikings

Portland State has all but mathematically locked up the No. 1 seed, and it has one of the best mid-major dynamic duos in Jaylin Henderson and Terri Miller Jr., who have combined for roughly 37 points, 10 rebounds, and 10 assists per game. When those guys are doing their thing, best of luck to everyone else in the Big Sky.

Big South: Winthrop Eagles

If it's anything other than High Point and Winthrop battling in the championship game, a massive upset has occurred. The only loss either of those teams has suffered in 2026 was in the two head-to-head games that they split, and KenPom has them both rated laughably ahead of the rest of the Big South. We'll give the edge to Winthrop, with the caveat that High Point will be mighty tough to beat if Cam'Ron Fletcher is available and locked in like he was back in November.

Big West: Hawaii Rainbow Warriors

Outside of maybe the Sun Belt, there isn't a more wide-open field than the Big West, where any of seven teams could be the pick. When in doubt, though, go with the team that has a seven-footer who was a top-100 recruit all the way back in 2019. Between his pre-college LDS mission, a redshirt year in 2022-23, and multiple transfers, it has been a long and winding road for Hawaii's Isaac Johnson. But he has averaged 27 points per 40 minutes played thus far in 2026 and he might take over this conference tournament.

Colonial: Hofstra Pride

After a nonconference slate in which they won at Pitt, won at Syracuse, and almost won at UCF, Hofstra bottomed out with five consecutive Big South losses in January, even dropping a game at NC A&T. The Pride has rallied, though. Cruz Davis is a Bennett Stirtz type of "plays darn near every minute and does darn near everything for the team" lead guard who could carry them to their first dance since Jay Wright was the coach in 2001.

Definite One-Bid Leagues (Part 2 of 3)

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Merrimack's Kevair Kennedy

Horizon: Robert Morris Colonials

Wright State is almost certainly going to be the No. 1 seed and the favorite, but ol' Bobby Mo is both the best three-point shooting team and by far the best rebounding team in the Horizon League. Granted, the Colonials don't do much else at a high level, but that's a combination that can propel you through a hot stretch of three games in three days.

MAAC: Merrimack Warriors

In most leagues, picking the No. 1 seed is the furthest thing from going out on a limb. But in the MAAC, the No. 1 seed has won just two of the past 14 conference tournaments. This makes Merrimack almost feel like an underdog, despite winning 18 of its last 21 games and having the best player in the conference in freshman Kevair Kennedy.

MEAC: Howard Bison

Howard is one of the most undersized teams in the country, but the starting frontcourt duo of 6'4" Bryce Harris and 6'7" Cedric Taylor III has been larger than life, each averaging better than 17 points and six rebounds per game. The Bison made the dance in both 2023 and 2024 and will be the clear favorite to make it three out of four, rated by KenPom at nearly 100 spots higher than the second-best team in the MEAC.

Northeast: Le Moyne Dolphins

Three years ago, Merrimack defeated Fairleigh Dickinson to win the NEC tournament. However, Merrimack was not eligible for the NCAA tournament because it was still "transitioning" from D-II to D-I, so FDU got into the dance on a technicality and then stunned Purdue in the first round. Well, Le Moyne is similarly ineligible for the NCAA tournament, but is on track for the No. 3 seed in the NEC tourney. And the Dolphins have already upset NEC No. 1 seed Long Island once this season.

Ohio Valley: Tennessee State Tigers

First-year head coach Nolan Smith has quite the dynamic duo in Travis Harper II and Aaron Nkrumah, who darn near rank Nos. 1 and 2 in the OVC in scoring. Nkrumah is also one of the nation's best thieves at 2.7 steals per game. If the Tigers do win, it is more than plausible they could be the No. 16 seed matched up with Duke in the first round. And if any coach in the nation knows Jon Scheyer, it's the one who was his teammate for three years, as well as his co-assistant at Duke for six seasons.

Patriot: Navy Midshipmen

Speaking of first-year head coaches, Jon Perry has Navy in great shape for its first NCAA tournament since 1998. At 19-1 since the beginning of December and riding a 13-game winning streak at home, it's hard to pick against the Midshipmen here, considering this is one of the few leagues where the higher seed gets home-court advantage in each round. The Patriot League tournament has also been won by either the No. 1 or No. 2 seed in nine consecutive years.

Definite One-Bid Leagues (Part 3 of 3)

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Jackson State's Daeshun Ruffin

SoCon: East Tennessee State Buccaneers

Wofford winning last year's SoCon tournament as the No. 6 seed was quite the exception to the rule. Prior to that, it had been 10 consecutive champions who were at least tied for first place during the regular season, which ETSU has already secured at this point. And the Bucs' three-headed attack of Cam Morris III, Blake Barkley, and Brian Taylor will be tough to beat.

Sun Belt: Troy Trojans

There's open, there's wide open, and then there's the Sun Belt, where at the start of play on Saturday, the gap between first place and 13th place was merely four games. But this is the "Stairway to Seven" league, where the Nos. 11-14 seeds would need to win seven games to win the tournament, while the Nos. 1-2 seeds get a bye straight to the semifinals. And as the likeliest team to secure a top-two seed, advantage Troy—even though the Trojans have lost five of their last eight games.

Summit League: St. Thomas Tommies

Real toss-up here between North Dakota State and St. Thomas, but let's give the nod to the Tommies in their first year of NCAA tournament eligibility. They almost won the head-to-head game on the road against the Bison last month, even on an afternoon when St. Thomas was uncharacteristically sloppy with giveaways. The Tommies should get their revenge on Thursday before winning the projected rubber match in the Summit title game.

SWAC: Jackson State Tigers

Through 12 league games played, Jackson State's Daeshun Ruffin is averaging 28.9 points and 7.4 assists per game. Granted, the Tigers still lost five of those games, including getting pummeled at the SWAC projected No. 1 seed, Bethune-Cookman. But Ruffin could take this tournament over.

WAC: Cal Baptist Lancers

It's still unclear at this point whether Utah Valley will be allowed to compete in the WAC tournament, but Cal Baptist could win it either way. Dominique Daniels went for 47 points in a win over UVU late last month, and the Lancers are one of the better rebounding teams in the country.

Very Likely One-Bid Leagues

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Yale's Nick Townsend

For each of these five leagues, at an-large bid is highly unlikely. But there is a team from each with results-based metrics that are good enough to at least merit a brief at-large discussion from the selection committee. In each case, that team is our projected champion here.

American: South Florida Bulls

USF has two Quad 1 wins and a solid 6-5 record against Quads 1 and 2, but also a trio of Quad 3 losses that figures to keep the Bulls from making a serious case for an at-large bid. Ideally, though, they won't need one, as they have been the AAC's best team, including a sweep of Tulsa and a recent pounding of Memphis. Five Bulls average better than 11 points per game for what is one of the highest scoring teams in the land.

Conference USA: Liberty Flames

As a reminder of how difficult Miami-Ohio's undefeated season had been, Liberty just had a 17-game winning streak snapped by way of a 21-point home loss to Western Kentucky. Granted, they have no Quad 1 wins, merely a pair of Quad 2 victories, and not even a top-100 KenPom ranking to show for it, but they had been unbeatable for more than two months. It's the Flames' tournament to lose.

Ivy League: Yale Bulldogs

Yale has the best three-point percentage in the nation, but it shot 5-for-29 in an embarrassing blowout loss at Princeton earlier this season and had a world of trouble in general in both games against Harvard, losing one by two and winning the other by one in overtime. In other words, we aren't anticipating a cakewalk. But the Bulldogs are the best team, and Nick Townsend is the best player in the league.

Missouri Valley: Belmont Bruins

At 25-4 overall, Belmont is clearly the cream of the Missouri Valley crop, where every other team has suffered at least six conference losses and 10 total losses. But they don't call it Arch Madness for nothing, and the Bruins have been picked off three times already in league play—twice in overtime, the third on a buzzer-beater. Tough to bet against them, though, especially with the best effective field-goal percentage in the nation.

Southland: McNeese Cowboys

This is the least likely multi-bid league of the bunch, but both five-loss McNeese and four-loss Stephen F. Austin entered this past weekend ranked top 60 in Wins Above Bubble and will very likely be squaring off for the Southland championship. Unfortunately for SFA, that tournament will be hosted by McNeese, in an arena where the Cowboys have gone 47-1 over the past three seasons, so get ready for freshman Larry Johnson to lead this team back to the dance.

Non-Majors with Legitimate Multi-Bid Potential

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Gonzaga's Graham Ike and Tyon Grant-Foster

If all four of these projected champions win, it's plausible that none of these leagues will place multiple teams into the NCAA tournament field. But Gonzaga is a lock to dance, Saint Louis and Utah State are closing in on lock status, and Miami-Ohio certainly should get in if it gets to 31 or more wins.

Atlantic-10: Saint Louis Billikens

Were it not for Rhode Island's Jonah Hinton catching fire for nine three-pointers in a home win over Saint Louis, the Billikens would be undefeated in A-10 play. In the subsequent 13-point rout of VCU to polish off a season sweep of the league's second-best team, they reminded everyone that they are clearly the team to beat. And if they do win this tournament, the A-10 is very likely going to be a one-bid league for the third time in four years. How far the once-mighty mid-major has fallen.

Mid-American: Miami-Ohio RedHawks

It's honestly going to be a bit hilarious if 33-0 Miami-Ohio is an underdog against Akron in the MAC championship, but it could happen, as the Zips are currently 15-20 spots ahead of the RedHawks on KenPom. Give us the team with the zero in the loss column, though. Miami-Ohio didn't even shoot well when it beat Akron back in early January, but it could win convincingly if it's having one of its typical nights at the office.

Mountain West: Utah State Aggies

Save for a pair of off nights in mid-January, Utah State has barely even been challenged for Mountain West supremacy. And if current standings hold, the Aggies would be on the opposite side of the bracket from No. 2/3 New Mexico and San Diego State, as well as tournament host UNLV, only needing to deal with one of them in the championship game.

West Coast: Gonzaga Bulldogs

Gonzaga has won 21 of the last 27 WCC tournaments, and with Saint Mary's and Santa Clara projected to clash in the semifinals, the Zags should be the heavy favorite for one more title before leaving for the reanimated Pac-12. Graham Ike leads a quartet of sixth-year seniors looking to finally bring a national championship to Spokane.

Atlantic Coast

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Duke's Cameron Boozer

NCAA Locks: Duke, Louisville, North Carolina, Virginia

Probably Dancing: Miami, NC State, SMU

On the Bubble: California, Clemson, Virginia Tech

Predicted Winner: Duke Blue Devils

If Caleb Wilson is healthy for North Carolina, if Louisville or NC State catches fire from distance, if Virginia dominates in the paint as it has for most of the season, or if Florida State's second-half-of-the-season rampage continues, anything could happen in this tournament.

And goodness knows we've seen some unexpected winners in this tourney in recent years, including Georgia Tech as a bubble team in 2021, Virginia Tech as a bubble team in 2022, and NC State as a bubble team in 2024.

For all we know, California could be about to go on a tear to punch its first NCAA ticket since 2016.

Duke simply has to be the pick, though.

Even in both of the Blue Devils' losses, they led by nine with seven minutes remaining before collapsing for a heartbreaker in which the opposition hit a game-winner with less than five seconds to go.

And unlike in the Big Ten or Big 12, where there are a handful of legitimate national championship contenders who could beat the favorite without it even feeling like an upset, Duke is the only ACC team that ranks top 15 on KenPom, bound to be the clear favorite in all three games it plays—assuming it makes it to the title game.

However, it is worth pointing out that Duke basically only plays eight guys and hasn't played on back-to-back days yet this season, let alone on back-to-back-to-back days. Maybe Cameron Boozer will be running on fumes by Championship Saturday, and the Blue Devils could be prone to letting another one slip away in the closing minutes.

Big 12

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Iowa State's Joshua Jefferson

NCAA Locks: Arizona, BYU, Houston, Iowa State, Kansas, Texas Tech

Probably Dancing: UCF

On the Bubble: TCU

Predicted Winner: Iowa State Cyclones

Nowhere has the regular season war of attrition taken its toll more than in the Big 12.

Texas Tech's JT Toppin and BYU's Richie Saunders are both done for the year with torn ACLs.

Arizona freshman Koa Peat has missed the last two games with a lower-leg injury, while fellow freshman Dwayne Aristode has missed the last three with an illness. If and when they'll be back is yet to be determined.

Kansas' Darryn Peterson saga has been inescapable, but at least he's playing at the moment and should be available for the Big 12 tournament. (Though, whether he has the conditioning right now to play three games in three days—or even four games in four days, if the Jayhawks fail to finish in the top four of the standings—is questionable, at best.)

Houston has been the healthiest team in the league (knock on all of the wood) and a predictive metrics darling all season long. However, after three consecutive losses to Iowa State, Arizona, and Kansas, it doesn't much feel like they're the team to beat, either.

If Peat and Aristode are healthy for the Big 12 tournament, Arizona likely will be my final pick. For now, though, Iowa State makes the most sense, provided being one of the best defenses and one of the best three-point shooting teams in the country ends up being more important than ranking among the worst free-throw shooting teams in the nation.

The Cyclones have won this tournament five of the last 11 times it was completed, and they're probably better this year than they were for any of those previous runs.

Big East

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St. John's Dillon Mitchell

NCAA Locks: Connecticut, St. John's, Villanova

Probably Dancing: N/A

On the Bubble: Seton Hall

Predicted Winner: St. John's Red Storm

Mathematically speaking, this is the major conference where some bid thievery is most likely to happen. Though we have Seton Hall listed as on the bubble, the Pirates almost certainly need to win this tournament in order to make it into the real one. That means we are guaranteed at least one Big East Tournament semifinalist still trying to crash the party.

But we're getting Round Three of UConn-St. John's in the championship game at Madison Square Garden, right?

Right?!

Maybe Villanova spoils that party with a slight upset in the 2/3 semifinal, but it truly would be stunning if it's not one of those three teams winning this thing.

St. John's is the pick, though, because of three key things:

Home advantage at Madison Square Garden

Projected No. 1 seed, thus avoiding Villanova in the semis

Rick Pitino has won the last three matchups with Dan Hurley

The Red Storm also enters Wednesday's showdown with UConn on a 13-game winning streak, playing some of the best basketball in the nation as of late. They didn't even have Ian Jackson available for Saturday's game against Creighton, and they still won by 29.

The Johnnies flamed out in the second round of last year's NCAA tournament, but they appear to be gearing up for a deeper run this time around.

Big Ten

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Wisconsin's John Blackwell

NCAA Locks: Illinois, Michigan, Michigan State, Nebraska, Purdue, Wisconsin

Probably Dancing: Iowa

On the Bubble: Indiana, Ohio State, UCLA, USC

Predicted Winner: Wisconsin Badgers

The "I just want to be right" pick is Michigan. The Wolverines are the best team in the country, and there's a decent chance they're going to go 19-1 in Big Ten play—a league that hasn't had a one-loss (or undefeated) champion since Greg Oden and Ohio State went 15-1 back in 2007.

The "I want to witness history" pick is Purdue. Braden Smith is 82 assists behind Bobby Hurley for the NCAA's all-time record for career assists with just four regular season games remaining. Throw in the Big Ten tournament opener and first round of the NCAA tournament and that's at least six games left for Smith. A Purdue run to the B1G title game should get him pretty close to Hurley.

But the "I want to have fun and watch a team drain something like 60 triples in four days" pick is Wisconsin.

The Badgers are 18-3 this season when making at least eight three-pointers. Two of the losses came in overtime. The third came by two points on a night where they shot 34 percent from the field. And they've already won road games over Michigan and Illinois.

It's really just a question of whether they'll be able to catch fire and stay hot in Chicago. But we like their chances.

Southeastern

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Florida's Thomas Haugh

NCAA Locks: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Tennessee, Vanderbilt

Probably Dancing: Kentucky

On the Bubble: Auburn, Georgia, Missouri, Texas, Texas A&M

Predicted Winner: Florida Gators

While the Big East is mathematically most likely to produce a bid thief, the SEC has to be the major conference most likely to have something like No. 7 vs. No. 8 in the title game.

Yes, Florida should win this thing. The Gators have been the hottest team in the nation over the past month, storming back from their 5-4 start to the season to become one of the top candidates to win it all.

Let's play devil's advocate, though, and say Florida doesn't win it.

In that scenario, who does?

The gap from No. 2 in this league—whether that's Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Alabama, or Arkansas—down to dealer's choice of Georgia or Texas A&M as the 10th-best team is pretty negligible. Case in point, I would personally lean toward Tennessee as the second-best team in the SEC, yet the Vols needed one overtime to win at Georgia and two OTs to survive at home against the Aggies.

In other words, we'll see who's hot two weeks from now.

Were the SEC tournament starting today, Alabama would be a solid option. The Crimson Tide has averaged 97.5 points during its six-game winning streak. Or for more of a sleeper pick, Auburn already has a road win over Florida and a desperation to show the selection committee it belongs in the field despite all its losses. Maybe the Tigers could pull it off.

But Florida is the pick until the Gators give us a legitimate reason to believe otherwise.