Latest 2026 Men's NCAA Tournament Bracket Projections
March is here, some conference tournaments have already begun and Selection Sunday for the 2026 men's NCAA tournament is less than two weeks away.
Welcome to the madness before the Madness.
Though time is almost up, there's still a lot left to be determined, in terms of seeding and in figuring out which teams along the bubble are actually going to play their way into the field.
Duke, Michigan, and Arizona are all but assured to be No. 1 seeds when the bracket is announced on Sunday, March 15, but that's about all we can say with certainty these days.
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
No. 8 Missouri vs. No. 9 Iowa
Portland, OR
No. 4 Gonzaga vs. No. 13 UNC Wilmington
No. 5 Arkansas vs. No. 12 High Point
St. Louis, MO
No. 3 Illinois vs. No. 14 Navy
No. 6 Kentucky vs. No. 11 UCLA
St. Louis, MO
No. 2 Iowa State vs. No. 15 Merrimack
No. 7 Miami (FL) vs. No. 10 Texas A&M
Midwest Region (Chicago)
Buffalo, NY
No. 1 Michigan vs. No. 16 UMBC / Long Island
No. 8 Clemson vs. No. 9 Texas
Philadelphia, PA
No. 4 Kansas vs. No. 13 Liberty
No. 5 North Carolina vs. No. 12 South Florida
San Diego, CA
No. 3 Texas Tech vs. No. 14 Hawaii
No. 6 Wisconsin vs. No. 11 VCU / Santa Clara
Tampa, FL
No. 2 Florida vs. No. 15 East Tennessee State
No. 7 UCF vs. No. 10 Miami (OH)
South Region (Houston)
Philadelphia, PA
No. 1 Connecticut vs. No. 16 Howard / Bethune Cookman
No. 8 Utah State vs. No. 9 Georgia
Portland, OR
No. 4 Virginia vs. No. 13 Utah Valley
No. 5 Vanderbilt vs. No. 12 Yale
Oklahoma City, OK
No. 3 Nebraska vs. No. 14 North Dakota State
No. 6 Saint Mary's vs. No. 11 SMU / New Mexico
Oklahoma City, OK
No. 2 Houston vs. No. 15 Austin Peay
No. 7 BYU* vs. No. 10 NC State
West Region (San Jose)
San Diego, CA
No. 1 Arizona vs. No. 16 Portland State
No. 8 Villanova vs. No. 9 Saint Louis
Tampa, FL
No. 4 Alabama vs. No. 13 Stephen F. Austin
No. 5 St. John's vs. No. 12 Belmont
Greenville, SC
No. 3 Purdue vs. No. 14 Troy
No. 6 Tennessee vs. No. 11 Ohio State
Buffalo, NY
No. 2 Michigan State vs. No. 15 Wright State
No. 7 Louisville vs. No. 10 TCU
*Ideally, a No. 2 and No. 7 seed from the same conference wouldn't be paired together, but this is the only place we can put BYU with its "no Sunday games" restriction. And as long as the sets of Cougars don't meet for a second time in the Big 12 tournament, they technically are allowed to face each other as early as the second round.
Ranking the No. 1 Seeds
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1. Duke Blue Devils (27-2, NET: 1, RES: 2.3, QUAL: 1.3)
2. Michigan Wolverines (27-2, NET: 2, RES: 1.0, QUAL: 1.7)
3. Arizona Wildcats (27-2, NET: 3, RES: 2.7, QUAL: 3.0)
4. Connecticut Huskies (27-3, NET: 9, RES: 4.0, QUAL: 9.3)
5. Florida Gators (23-6, NET: 4, RES: 5.7, QUAL: 4.3)
Duke, Michigan, and Arizona feel like locks to be No. 1 seeds at this point. They entered Monday collectively at 36-5 against Quad 1, each with just two losses. And their Wins Above Bubble scores are just laughably ahead of the field, each north of 10.6, while Michigan State has the fifth-best WAB at a mark of 7.48.
Duke does have the head-to-head "tiebreaker" against Michigan and would presumably remain No. 1 overall if it wins out to finish 32-2. But don't get hung up too much on the actual order of 1, 2, and 3 overall right now. It'll sort itself out over the remaining 12 days until Selection Sunday.
The only real debate is between UConn and Florida for No. 4 overall. And though Florida is pretty undeniably the better team at this point, frankly, it's not even much of a debate, as the Huskies beat the Gators at Madison Square Garden and Florida has suffered twice as many losses as UConn.
Now, if Florida wins out, it would become a more compelling argument. Because while UConn wraps up the regular season with one more game against Marquette and probably won't face an NCAA tournament team in the Big East tournament unless it draws St. John's or Villanova in the championship game, Florida ends the regular season at Kentucky before tentatively getting several more Quad 1 opportunities in the SEC tournament.
Florida already has two more Quad 1 wins than UConn, and could end up with around 14 to the Huskies' nine. And for as much as we've heard from the selection committee this season that it actually does care about all the conference tournament results, maybe they would put a little more emphasis on an SEC championship for a change if Florida wins it.
For now, though, this top line looks pretty clear.
10 Words on Each of the 10 'Bubbliest' Teams
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Fifth-to-Last In: UCLA Bruins (19-10, NET: 39, RES: 43.3, QUAL: 39.0)—Loss at Minnesota stung, but Bruins still in decent shape.
Fourth-to-Last In: SMU Mustangs (19-10, NET: 36, RES: 40.7, QUAL: 41.0)—Ponies are winless vs. Q1A; 7-10 against top two Quads.
Third-to-Last In: New Mexico Lobos (22-7, NET: 42, RES: 45.0, QUAL: 48.7)—Big win Saturday over SDSU, but can UNM topple USU?
Second-to-Last In: VCU Rams (22-7, NET: 47, RES: 43.0, QUAL: 47.7)—VCU moves in thanks to other bubble resumes getting worse.
Last Team In: Santa Clara Broncos (24-7, NET: 40, RES: 42.0, QUAL: 39.0)—Fell short at Saint Mary's, but possible WCC semifinal rematch.
***Cut Line***
First Team Out: Virginia Tech Hokies (18-11, NET: 54, RES: 46.7, QUAL: 59.0)—Massive regular season finale at Virginia coming up on Saturday.
Second Team Out: Auburn Tigers (15-14, NET: 38, RES: 45.7, QUAL: 37.7)—Only hope to dance is to beat LSU and Alabama.
Third Team Out: San Diego State Aztecs (19-9, NET: 44, RES: 50.3, QUAL: 45.0)—Smoked Utah State; lost to New Mexico; photo finish looming.
Fourth Team Out: California Golden Bears (20-9, NET: 64, RES: 50.3, QUAL: 71.7)—Getting blown out at home by Pitt was quite ill-advised.
Fifth Team Out: West Virginia Mountaineers (17-12, NET: 58, RES: 62.3, QUAL: 56.0)—Every team with five Quad 1 wins has a pulse.
ACC Summary
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8 Teams in the Projected Field: 1. Duke, 16. Virginia, 17. North Carolina, 25. Louisville, 28. Miami (FL), 30. Clemson, 37. NC State, 43. SMU
Also Considered: Virginia Tech, California
Biggest Development: A Less Than Ideal Week on the Bubble
Let's start with some good news for the ACC bubble, which was Clemson snapping its four-game schneid with a critical home win over Louisville. The Tigers were in danger of missing the dance after starting out 20-4, but that Quad 1 victory probably sealed the deal, provided they don't lose the home game against Georgia Tech on Saturday.
The other ACC bubble teams, though?
They weren't anywhere near as fortunate.
SMU went 0-for-2 on its road trip to the Golden State, losing a close one at Cal before getting pummeled by Stanford. The Mustangs were our top No. 9 seed heading into the week, but they have quickly backtracked into the danger zone. They now have four losses to teams not projected to dance, previously losing to Syracuse and LSU. And their only noteworthy wins were home games against North Carolina and Louisville.
Speaking of Cal, though, that home win over SMU temporarily vaulted the Golden Bears into the field, looking like a good candidate for a First Four game in Dayton. However, they turned around and lost at home to Pittsburgh by 16, which is a great big no-no. They are now further away from the field than they were seven days ago, and the remaining regular-season games against Wake Forest and Georgia Tech won't be able to help that much.
And while NC State didn't enter the week on the bubble, per se, the Wolfpack got drilled at Virginia before taking a bad loss at Notre Dame, failing to definitively punch their ticket. They host Duke and Stanford this week, and losing both would drop them to 19-12 overall and maybe into real bubble trouble.
Throw in Virginia Tech not getting what would have been a huge road win over North Carolina on Saturday night and the ACC is trending toward possibly becoming just a six-bid league.
Big 12 Summary
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8 Teams in the Projected Field: 3. Arizona, 6. Houston, 8. Iowa State, 11. Texas Tech, 14. Kansas, 26. UCF, 27. BYU, 39. TCU
Also Considered: West Virginia
Biggest Development: Reports of Texas Tech's Death Were Greatly Exaggerated
When Texas Tech's JT Toppin went down with a torn ACL in a loss to Arizona State two weeks ago, it felt like we lost a real candidate to win a national championship. At full strength, the Red Raiders won at Arizona, beat Duke on a neutral court, split with Houston, almost won at Illinois, and just had the vibe of a very dangerous team.
Sans Toppin, though?
As it turns out, still wildly dangerous.
They annihilated Kansas State two Saturdays ago and beat Cincinnati by a dozen this past Tuesday, but it was the 82-73 win at Iowa State on Saturday that re-solidified the Red Raiders as a team that no one is going to want to draw in their pod or region on Selection Sunday.
What's most ridiculous about that result at Hilton Coliseum is that Christian Anderson didn't even have a great game, finishing with 14 points, seven assists, and six turnovers. Rather, this supposed one-man show with a side act of a great three-point shooter (Donovan Atwell) got quite the full-team effort with six players scoring in double figures.
Most notable among them was reserve big man Josiah Moseley, who didn't make his season debut until late January due to a lower-body injury and played a grand total of 20 minutes across Texas Tech's first five games of February. But since being forced into a bigger role, he has amassed 51 minutes, 20 points, 18 rebounds, and seven blocks over his last three games.
He's no Toppin, but he has been huge for them. And they might win these next two against TCU and BYU to potentially become a No. 2 seed.
Big East Summary
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3 Teams in the Projected Field: 4. Connecticut, 20. St. John's, 29. Villanova
Also Considered: Seton Hall
Biggest Development: St. John's Had Itself a Week (And Didn't Move)
Can't imagine there have been many instances in Big East history in which a team consecutively lost and won games by 32 points each, but that was the Johnnies' fate in a rather bizarre, break-even week.
In the 72-40 loss at Connecticut, St. John's simply could not buy a bucket, shooting below 20 percent from the field. Meanwhile, Tarris Reed Jr. seemed to be everywhere for the Huskies, contesting every shot while also making nine of his own.
The Red Storm didn't waste any time licking their wounds, though, coming back three days later and obliterating Villanova by a score of 89-57. They shot better than 52 percent, both on twos and on threes, recording an assist on 26 of 32 made buckets. Zuby Ejiofor had 10 of those dimes en route to a triple-double.
Unfortunately, they pummeled Villanova a bit too much, knocking the Wildcats out of the NET top 30 for a win that went from Quad 1 to Quad 2 overnight. But that doesn't much matter. It was a quality blowout of a tournament-bound team, and it keeps the Johnnies in the mix for a No. 5 seed.
We shall see about the Big East tournament's No. 1 seed, though. If UConn (vs. Marquette) and St. John's (vs. Georgetown, at Seton Hall) both win out, they would each be 18-2, and the tiebreaker would come down to whether Creighton or Providence finishes higher in the standings. If Creighton finishes higher, St. John's gets the No. 1 seed. If it's Providence in the lead, it'll be UConn. And after Providence's win at Creighton on Saturday, it's much more likely to be the Friars ahead.
Big Ten Summary
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9 Teams in the Projected Field: 2. Michigan, 7. Michigan State, 9. Illinois, 10. Nebraska, 12. Purdue, 24. Wisconsin, 34. Iowa, 41. Ohio State, 42. UCLA
Also Considered: Indiana, USC
Biggest Development: Ohio State Finally Gets a Big Win; Indiana's Resume Nosedives
On Wednesday, it looked like Ohio State might finally be toast. Not only did the Buckeyes lose at Iowa to fall to 17-11 overall and winless in their 10 toughest games, but they got blown out after initially jumping out to a 14-2 lead. With big man Christoph Tilly unavailable for OSU, the Hawkeyes got whatever they wanted inside, shooting 76 percent on twos in that 17-point rout.
On Sunday, however, the Buckeyes finally picked up a marquee win, beating Purdue in Columbus and surging from what would have been somewhere around Fifth Team Out with a loss straight to our top No. 11 seed instead. The metrics have always liked Ohio State, but this team desperately needed a win better than the one at Northwestern. Now they have one.
That win at Northwestern, though? It only became a Quad 1 result for the Buckeyes after the Wildcats stunned Indiana in Assembly Hall on Tuesday, knocking the Hoosiers out of the projected field. Indiana subsequently lost at home to Michigan State on Sunday, falling to a brutal mark of 4-12 vs. Quads 1 and 2.
Last year, the Hoosiers missed the cut with a 4-13 record just against Quad 1. Yesteryear's team at least buoyed that a bit with a 5-0 record in Quad 2, but it wasn't enough. And even if they win their remaining regular season games against Minnesota and Ohio State, they'll be questionable for a bid at best heading into the Big Ten tournament.
SEC Summary
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10 Teams in the Projected Field: 5. Florida, 13. Alabama, 18. Arkansas, 19. Vanderbilt, 21. Kentucky, 22. Tennessee, 31. Missouri, 35. Georgia, 36. Texas, 40. Texas A&M
Also Considered: Auburn
Biggest Development: Auburn Crashes Into No-Man's Land
If there's one rule of thumb along the NCAA tournament cut line, it's that you have to finish at least three games above .500 to receive an at-large bid.
Maybe that changes this year? The bubble definitely ain't pretty. But the most recent team to buck that trend was Georgia, getting in at 16-14 back in 2001.
That means Auburn put itself in serious trouble this week, dropping to 15-14 overall with back-to-back losses to Oklahoma and Ole Miss.
Not only has the winning percentage become more than a little problematic, but both of those losses were to non-tournament teams, the home L against the Rebels becoming their worst misstep of the season by a country mile.
What had been a solid 15-12 resume with top-40 metrics across the board has turned into a 15-14 mess with Auburn now ranking 45th or worse in four of the six metrics—including all three of the results-based metrics, which are more important for selection.
Auburn certainly should win the home game against LSU on Tuesday, but if they turn around and lose at Alabama on Saturday, the Tigers mercifully might be toast. We've never seen a 16-loss team receive an at-large bid, and they would then become a 16-loss team if and when they get eliminated from the SEC tournament.
The double whammy for the SEC is that as Auburn's case for a bid gets worse, so does Texas A&M's case, as one of the Aggies' best wins of the season was a road game against Auburn. They lost to both Arkansas and Texas this week, dropping to 19-10 overall and down to 60th in KPI.
Xavier was also 60th in that particular metric when it controversially made the tournament last year, but it's a testament to how close Texas A&M is to the cut line. The Aggies feel like a coin flip at this point, with two coin-flip games (vs. Kentucky, at LSU) yet to come.
Mid-Majors Summary
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9 Teams in the Projected Field: 15. Gonzaga, 23. Saint Mary's, 32. Utah State, 33. Saint Louis, 44. New Mexico, 45. VCU, 46. Santa Clara, 47. South Florida, 48. Belmont
Also Considered: San Diego State
Biggest Development: Benefitting from Major-Conference Bubble Chaos
As is our constant refrain at this time of year: We have to get to 68 teams somehow.
And while the likes of Auburn, California, Indiana, SMU, Texas A&M, UCLA, and USC have recently not looked like teams that want to dance, it's the VCU's and Santa Claras of the world reaping the benefits.
Starting on the Santa Clara front, losing at Saint Mary's on Wednesday easily could have been a near-fatal blow for what was our last team in the field one week ago.
However, losing a road game to the Gaels—who subsequently won their regular season finale against Gonzaga to lock up a bid as far as we're concerned—ended up being only about the 12th worst loss suffered by a bubble team in the past seven days. And by bouncing back to smoke Oregon State on Saturday night, the Broncos remained not only in the conversation for a bid, but in the projected field.
Meanwhile, VCU's only game since our previous projection was a predictable, Quad 4 rout of Fordham. But the Rams got to stand there and watch the bubble crater around them, going from our third team out to our second-to-last team in by just staying put.
To remain in the field, VCU very likely needs to win both of its remaining games against George Mason and Dayton. It's even possible the Rams could slip a bit in the overall seed list even if they win both games, should a decent chunk of the major-conference bubble teams finish with a flourish.
The moral of the story, though, is that a two-bid A-10 is looking like a real possibility for the first time since George Mason was 18-1 in mid-January.
Other 21 Leagues Summary
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21 Teams in the Projected Field: 38. Miami-Ohio, 49. Yale, 50. High Point, 51. Stephen F. Austin, 52. Liberty, 53. Utah Valley, 54. UNC Wilmington, 55. Hawaii, 56. North Dakota State, 57. Navy, 58. Troy, 59. Austin Peay, 60. East Tennessee State, 61. Wright State, 62. Merrimack, 63. Portland State, 64. Tennessee State, 65. UMBC, 66. Long Island, 67. Howard, 68. Bethune Cookman
Also Considered: N/A
Biggest Development: RedHawks Survive Another Scare
Not surprisingly, the negative narrative about Miami-Ohio's undefeated season has grown more tiresome as more and more people start paying attention to college basketball and questioning the merits of the zero in this loss column.
Even as they watch results like Indiana's home loss to Northwestern, Cal's home loss to Pitt, and Auburn's home loss to Ole Miss pour in on a near-daily basis, the naysayers keep arguing that any half-decent team could run the table against the RedHawks' schedule.
If it were so easy, though, why is it that no one in the past three seasons even made it to mid-January with an undefeated record still intact, let alone into early March?
This is uncharted territory, having an unblemished team on the bubble. As long as they keep winning, though, the RedHawks will remain in great shape for a bid.
And despite not having starting point guard Luke Skaljac (wrist) for Friday night's game at Western Michigan, Miami-Ohio pulled another rabbit out of its hat, rallying from a nine-point deficit with less than seven minutes remaining to improve to 29-0 on a near buzzer-beater by Skaljac's replacement, freshman Trey Perry.
Just two regular season games remain, at home against Toledo on Tuesday and at Ohio on Friday. Win them both, and the RedHawks will become a lock to dance as far as we're concerned, as no team with 30 or more wins has ever missed the tournament.
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