Latest 2026 Men's NCAA Tournament Bracket Projections
If you have the standard allotment of fingers and toes, you can officially begin the countdown to Selection Sunday for the 2026 men's NCAA tournament. We are less than three weeks away from the big day.
While the vast majority of teams still have at least two more games before their conference tournaments begin, time is rapidly running out for them to do anything about their NCAA tournament seeding.
Duke, Michigan, and Arizona are all but locked onto the No. 1 seed line at this point, while the list of teams presently on the wrong side of the bubble who could still play their way into the at-large field is shrinking by the day.
In other words, it's crunch time.
The selection committee gave us the Top 16 reveal on Saturday. However, six of those teams lost within the next 12 hours, so here's hoping you're not expecting the top four lines to look exactly as they did a few days ago.
In our latest forecast of the 2026 NCAA tournament field, projected auto bids from each of the 31 conferences are based on conference record. In cases where there is a tie atop the league standings, the tied team with the best average rank among the six team sheet metrics—KPI, SOR, WAB, BPI, KenPom, and Torvik—gets the nod.
With that out of the way, let's start with the full bracket before some commentary on the current state of the bubble and the top seed line. Following that, we have a full conference-by-conference rundown highlighting the biggest changes from one week ago.
The Projected Bracket
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East Region (Washington, D.C.)
Greenville, SC
No. 1 Duke vs. No. 16 Tennessee State / Long Island
No. 8 UCF vs. No. 9 Georgia
Tampa, FL
No. 4 Tennessee vs. No. 13 High Point
No. 5 St. John's vs. No. 12 South Florida
Buffalo, NY
No. 3 Kansas vs. No. 14 Austin Peay
No. 6 Wisconsin vs. No. 11 New Mexico
St. Louis, MO
No. 2 Purdue vs. No. 15 Merrimack
No. 7 Saint Louis vs. No. 10 Missouri
Midwest Region (Chicago)
Buffalo, NY
No. 1 Michigan vs. No. 16 UMBC
No. 8 Kentucky vs. No. 9 SMU
Portland, OR
No. 4 Virginia vs. No. 13 Utah Valley
No. 5 Vanderbilt vs. No. 12 Yale
Tampa, FL
No. 3 Florida vs. No. 14 East Tennessee State
No. 6 North Carolina vs. No. 11 Indiana / Texas
St. Louis, MO
No. 2 Iowa State vs. No. 15 Portland State
No. 7 NC State vs. No. 10 Miami-Ohio
South Region (Houston)
Philadelphia, PA
No. 1 Connecticut vs. No. 16 Howard / Bethune Cookman
No. 8 Miami-Florida vs. No. 9 Auburn
San Diego, CA
No. 4 Texas Tech vs. No. 13 UNC Wilmington
No. 5 Arkansas vs. No. 12 Stephen F. Austin
Oklahoma City, OK
No. 3 Nebraska vs. No. 14 North Dakota State
No. 6 Louisville vs. No. 11 TCU / Santa Clara
Oklahoma City, OK
No. 2 Houston vs. No. 15 Wright State
No. 7 Iowa vs. No. 10 Saint Mary's
West Region (San Jose)
San Diego, CA
No. 1 Arizona vs. No. 16 Appalachian State
No. 8 Utah State vs. No. 9 Texas A&M
Philadelphia, PA
No. 4 Michigan State vs. No. 13 Liberty
No. 5 Alabama vs. No. 12 Belmont
Portland, OR
No. 3 Gonzaga vs. No. 14 Hawaii
No. 6 BYU vs. No. 11 UCLA
Greenville, SC
No. 2 Illinois vs. No. 15 Navy
No. 7 Villanova vs. No. 10 Clemson
Ranking the No. 1 Seeds
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1. Duke Blue Devils (25-2, NET: 2, RES: 2.3, QUAL: 2.0)
2. Michigan Wolverines (25-2, NET: 1, RES: 1.0, QUAL: 1.3)
3. Arizona Wildcats (25-2, NET: 3, RES: 2.7, QUAL: 2.7)
4. Connecticut Huskies (25-3, NET: 10, RES: 4.0, QUAL: 10.3)
5. Iowa State Cyclones (23-4, NET: 9, RES: 8.3, QUAL: 7.7)
In Saturday's Top 16 reveal, the selection committee had Michigan at No. 1 overall, followed by Duke, Arizona, and Iowa State, rounding out the top seed line.
And, well, that was a fun few hours, right?
By the end of the night, Duke had beaten Michigan on a neutral floor, and Arizona had added a phenomenal road win over Houston. While Iowa State lost at BYU, UConn took care of business at Villanova to climb from No. 5 back up to No. 4 overall.
Michigan does still have the better metrics than Duke, but when it's this close, it's kind of impossible to argue with a head-to-head result on a neutral floor, especially when the Wins Above Bubble scores are now virtually tied at 10.45 to 10.22.
By no means is that the final straw in the race for No. 1 overall, though. Duke still hosts Virginia and North Carolina with a road game against NC State in between, while Michigan ends its season with: at Illinois, at Iowa, vs. Michigan State. If both teams win out, though, it should be Duke atop the seed list.
Arizona is still right there, too, with home games remaining against Kansas and Iowa State to potentially bolster a strong resume. The Wildcats are a bit behind the other two in terms of WAB (9.69), but more than a full win ahead of UConn at No. 4 in that metric (8.35) and more than two full wins ahead of WAB No. 5, Purdue (7.32).
Basically, those are the only three teams with any realistic hope of securing the No. 1 overall seed at this point, but No. 4 overall is still pretty wide open.
For now, it's definitely UConn in that spot after Iowa State, Houston and Illinois all lost. However, it's plausible that any of those three or Purdue could climb ahead of the Huskies by winning out. The Cyclones, in particular, still have a road game against Arizona and a home game against Texas Tech. And if the committee liked them better than UConn a few days ago, they would once again prefer Iowa State if it finishes with a flourish.
10 Words on Each of the 10 'Bubbliest' Teams
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Fifth-to-Last In: New Mexico Lobos (21-6, NET: 43, RES: 45.7, QUAL: 46.3)—In for now; remaining slate suggests it might not last.
Fourth-to-Last In: Texas Longhorns (17-10, NET: 39, RES: 47.0, QUAL: 36.3)—A little bit of defense at Georgia would've been nice.
Third-to-Last In: Indiana Hoosiers (17-10, NET: 36, RES: 45.3, QUAL: 34.0)—Record against top two quads (4-10) has officially become nauseating.
Second-to-Last In: TCU Horned Frogs (17-10, NET: 47, RES: 51.7, QUAL: 53.3)—Will the collection of great wins outweigh terrible losses suffered?
Last Team In: Santa Clara Broncos (23-6, NET: 40, RES: 42.7, QUAL: 37.3)—Wednesday's game at Saint Mary's will be massive for the bubble.
***Cut Line***
First Team Out: USC Trojans (18-9, NET: 58, RES: 47.3, QUAL: 54.7)—Picked a rough time to acquire the worst loss of its season.
Second Team Out: Ohio State Buckeyes (17-10, NET: 37, RES: 49.0, QUAL: 36.7)—Hasn't had a three-game winning streak since before Thanksgiving.
Third Team Out: VCU Rams (21-7, NET: 45, RES: 45.0, QUAL: 45.7)—Might need to win out to A10 final to dance.
Fourth Team Out: Virginia Tech Hokies (18-10, NET: 50, RES: 47.7, QUAL: 58.0)—Will need a road win over North Carolina or Virginia.
Fifth Team Out: California Golden Bears (19-8, NET: 59, RES: 49.0, QUAL: 65.3)—Quietly hanging around; finished season sweep of Stanford on Saturday.
ACC Summary
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8 Teams in the Projected Field: 1. Duke, 16. Virginia, 21. North Carolina, 24. Louisville, 26. NC State, 29. Miami, 33. SMU, 38. Clemson
Also Considered: Virginia Tech, California
Biggest Development: Clemson Takes a Tumble
Remember five weeks ago when Clemson was 16-3 overall, undefeated in ACC play, and projected for a No. 5 seed?
Ah, memories...
To that point, Torvik rated the Tigers as the 25th-best team in the nation.
Since then, Clemson has lost five of nine, including each of the past four, and is rated by Torvik as the 51st-best team.
Even that seems generous, as they've only played two projected tournament teams during that nine-game stretch, losing at home to both Virginia Tech and Florida State and losing at Wake Forest, in the process of slipping to the bubble.
Clemson does still feel relatively safe, though.
At any rate, the Tigers are 10-8 against Quads 1 and 2 with four Quad 1 wins and no terrible losses. Venture down to the cut line, and you've got Indiana at 4-10 against Quads 1 and 2, TCU and Santa Clara each with a horrendous Quad 4 loss, and Ohio State still searching for its first Quad 1 win of the season.
Being a No. 10 seed looks perilous, but there is a decent cushion.
However, it's a cushion that could vanish in a hurry if they also lose their next two games against Louisville and North Carolina, as the lack of a legitimately great win would be tough to ignore at that point.
Big 12 Summary
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8 Teams in the Projected Field: 3. Arizona, 5. Iowa State, 8. Houston, 10. Kansas, 13. Texas Tech, 22. BYU, 30. UCF, 45. TCU
Also Considered: N/A
Biggest Development: BYU Catches a Big Fish
Slowly but surely, BYU seemed to be sealing its fate as a team that is going to win one and only one game in the NCAA tournament, consistently able to beat teams outside of the top four seed lines, while consistently unable to beat an upper-echelon foe.
And with Richie Saunders lost for the year to a torn ACL, losing a first-round game to a No. 10 or No. 11 seed was starting to feel far more likely than beating a No. 2 or No. 3 seed to reach the Sweet 16.
That changed in a big way this past week, first putting up a respectable fight at Arizona before heading home to Provo for a marquee win over Iowa State.
To no one's surprise, AJ Dybantsa played a massive role in both games, going for 64 points, 17 rebounds and 11 assists. But the noteworthy development was new starting power forward Mihailo Boskovic scoring a career-high 13 points with five rebounds in the win over the Cyclones.
There's no replacing Saunders' 18.0 points and team-leading 1.7 steals per game, but BYU can still be a real problem so long as someone other than Dybantsa and Rob Wright III shows up to some extent on offense.
That didn't happen against Arizona. They were the only two Cougars to make more than two field goals. But the other three starters combined for 15 buckets against Iowa State.
BYU has climbed back up to a firm No. 6 seed, and with a pretty favorable remaining schedule, ascending into "protected seed" range is well within the realm of possibility.
Big East Summary
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3 Teams in the Projected Field: 4. Connecticut, 20. St. John's, 25. Villanova
Also Considered: Seton Hall
Biggest Development: St. John's Enters Driver's Seat for Big East No. 1 Seed
Coming up on Wednesday is the big rematch between UConn and St. John's, this time in Storrs.
If the Johnnies win, not only would they likely jump to a No. 4 seed, but they would be basically locked in as the No. 1 seed for the Big East tournament. At that point, they would have to lose all three of their remaining games to blow it. And that No. 1 seed would be huge, since it means avoiding a semifinal showdown with Villanova and only needing to face a maximum of one NCAA tournament team in the Big East tournament.
Even if the Huskies win to split the regular-season series, though, St. John's would still hold the tiebreaker thanks to UConn's loss to Creighton this past Wednesday.
The funny thing is that despite that worst loss of the season, UConn is right back where we had them a week ago.
That Quad 3 loss temporarily bumped the Huskies from No. 4 overall to No. 5. But they responded with a Quad 1A road win over Villanova while both Iowa State and Houston suffered losses to leave the door to the final No. 1 seed wide open for UConn to re-enter.
All told, basically no change here yet again.
The biggest development might have actually been Seton Hall losing at home to DePaul to essentially terminate any hope of an at-large bid. The Pirates now need to win at UConn on Saturday and win the season finale at home against St. John's to have any real hope here.
Big Ten Summary
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9 Teams in the Projected Field: 2. Michigan, 6. Purdue, 7. Illinois, 11. Nebraska, 14. Michigan State, 23. Wisconsin, 27. Iowa, 41. UCLA, 44. Indiana
Also Considered: USC, Ohio State
Biggest Development: UCLA Gets Big Win; USC Does Not
Illinois had to make its journey out to the Pacific Ocean this past week, playing at USC on Wednesday before taking on UCLA on Saturday.
In the first game, the Illini pummeled the Trojans by 36. And though they were on track to deliver a similar beatdown to the Bruins, leading 33-10 midway through the first half, UCLA started mounting a comeback when Keaton Wagler temporarily left the game with a shoulder injury. The Bruins ended up coming all the way back for a marquee win on a Donovan Dent coast-to-coast game-winner at the end of overtime.
It was UCLA's second gigantic win at home in dramatic fashion, pairing with the previous victory over Purdue in which Tyler Bilodeau hit the game-winning triple with less than 10 seconds remaining. Nail-biters or not, though, that's two huge wins for a team with no particularly bad losses. The metrics aren't great, but the Bruins are back into the projected field and clear of the play-in games.
USC, on the other hand, followed up its shellacking at the hands of the Illini with a terrible home loss to Oregon, dropping the Trojans out of our projected field in advance of a tough closing slate: at UCLA, vs. Nebraska, at Washington, vs. UCLA.
They do still have a really nice road win over Wisconsin, but four losses to teams not projected to dance and not a single metric in which they rank in the top 45 is a bridge too far. Even a 2-2 finish would leave them in bubble trouble heading into the Big Ten tournament.
SEC Summary
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11 Teams in the Projected Field: 9. Florida, 15. Tennessee, 17. Alabama, 18. Arkansas, 19. Vanderbilt, 32. Kentucky, 34. Georgia, 35. Auburn, 36. Texas A&M, 40. Missouri, 43. Texas
Also Considered: N/A
Biggest Development: Kentucky Donates Two Quality Wins to the Bubble
Kentucky is basically a lock for the NCAA tournament.
If the Wildcats were to lose all of their remaining games—including the road game against South Carolina on Tuesday—then, sure, we would need to talk. Even at that, though, they'd be entering the SEC tournament at 17-14 with a season sweep of Tennessee, a road win over Arkansas, a neutral win over St. John's, a pair of bubble-relevant home wins over Texas and Indiana, and just the one hypothetical bad loss to the Gamecocks.
On this year's bubble, that might be fine.
In the meantime, Kentucky was feeling mighty generous with two of the teams who entered the week on the bubble, handing a road win to Georgia and a home win to Auburn.
Heading into each of those games, it felt like a Kentucky win was going to be a near-fatal blow.
Georgia was our "Last Team In" one week ago, desperately needing wins after dropping five of its last six. The Bulldogs got it, though, as well as a subsequent home win over Texas to vault back up to a No. 9 seed.
Meanwhile, Auburn was sitting at 14-12, and regardless of their metrics, the Tigers would have fallen out of our projected field if they had dropped to 14-13. Instead, they narrowly put an end to their five-game losing streak on a last-second tip-in by Elyjah Freeman. They, too, went from the brink of the NIT back up to a projected No. 9 seed.
If Kentucky also loses in Columbia, panic could start to set in, as the Wildcats are projected to lose each of their final three games: vs. Vanderbilt, at Texas A&M, and vs. Florida. But, for now, they've merely helped the SEC's bid count.
Mid-Majors Summary (A10, AAC, MVC, MWC, WCC)
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8 Teams in the Projected Field: 12. Gonzaga, 28. Saint Louis, 31. Utah State, 39. Saint Mary's, 42. New Mexico, 46. Santa Clara, 47. South Florida, 48. Belmont
Also Considered: VCU, San Diego State
Biggest Development: Carnage in A10 and MWC
Let's start in the A10, where Saint Louis took a tough road loss before then delivering one.
The Billikens fell at Rhode Island on a night where Jonah Hinton shot 9-of-15 from three-point range for the Rams. That temporarily dropped SLU from a No. 6 seed down to a No. 8 seed, and it looked like things could be getting even worse when they trailed by 14 early on Friday night against VCU. But they won the final 25 minutes by a margin of 64-38, handing that set of Rams yet another hard-luck loss.
All told, Saint Louis slipped a bit from No. 23 to No. 28 on our seed list, but remains in great shape for a bid, even without a win over a surefire tournament team. Sweeping VCU and beating Santa Clara on a neutral court is a nice collection of wins for a 25-2 squad, and they just need to not crater down the stretch.
On the flip side of that coin, brutal blown opportunity for VCU, which is 21-7 overall, but 0-6 against teams that would receive an at-large bid right now. Neutral wins over Virginia Tech and South Florida keep them in the conversation, but it might be auto bid or bust.
Meanwhile, in the Mountain West, San Diego State is just about toast after back-to-back losses to Grand Canyon and Colorado State. The Aztecs might need to win their remaining four games, but KenPom gives them less than a seven percent chance of doing so.
Utah State also took a rare loss, falling at Nevada on Saturday night. The Aggies are still 10-3 against Quads 1 and 2 and rank in the top 27 in every metric except for SOR, so they're still sitting pretty. But they'd better be careful down the stretch. At San Diego State, vs. Grand Canyon, at UNLV, and vs. New Mexico could go sideways in a hurry.
Other 21 Leagues Summary
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21 Teams in the Projected Field: 37. Miami-Ohio, 49. Yale, 50. Stephen F. Austin, 51. Liberty, 52. High Point, 53. Utah Valley*, 54. UNC Wilmington, 55. Hawaii, 56. North Dakota State, 57. Austin Peay, 58. East Tennessee State, 59. Navy, 60. Merrimack, 61. Wright State, 62. Portland State, 63. Appalachian State, 64. UMBC, 65. Long Island, 66. Tennessee State, 67. Howard, 68. Bethune Cookman
Also Considered: N/A
Biggest Development: Miami-Ohio Keeps Winning, But Slips in Seeding
*Utah Valley is presently ineligible for the WAC's auto bid, as the league is attempting to force the school to pay a $1M exit fee to leave the conference this summer. The Wolverines are appealing the decision and remain the projected champion for the time being.
Miami-Ohio improved to 27-0 this week with victories over Massachusetts and Bowling Green. The RedHawks now have about a 40 percent chance of finishing the regular season undefeated, which would be quite awesome.
Despite the pair of wins, though, the RedHawks slipped from No. 33 overall to No. 37 overall, due to the number of major conference teams previously in the Nos. 34-46 range surging behind better wins.
This is exactly what we've cautioned all along with the undefeated RedHawks, who were always going to be at the mercy of the bubble to some extent. Beating the Minutemen and the Falcons netted them around 0.3 WAB, while UCF, SMU, Georgia, and Texas A&M added double or even triple that to their resumes in the same time.
It could be a similar story a week from now if they're still undefeated, as road wins over Eastern Michigan and Western Michigan wouldn't be worth much, outside of the extremely important value of keeping a zero in the loss column. But we shall see what the rest of the bubble decides to do in the next seven days.
But consider this a PSA: If Miami-Ohio gets to 31-0, it will remain in our projected field no matter what happens in the MAC tournament. And even if the RedHawks drop one game in the next two weeks before losing to Akron in the MAC championship game to finish at 32-2, there's a strong chance we'll keep them in the field, pending the number of bid thieves during Championship Week.
This is uncharted territory, and the selection committee might decide otherwise. However, we'd rather be on the right side of history on this one.
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