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Winners and Losers from the 2026 Men's NCAA Tournament
The 2026 men's NCAA tournament wound to a close on Monday night, with the Michigan Wolverines wrapping up a dominant March Madness run with a 69-63 victory over the UConn Huskies in the national championship game.
Even without a true Cinderella story and a No. 1 seed hoisting the trophy while the confetti fell, there was still no shortage of surprise and drama along the way during another memorable NCAA tournament.
Now it's time to slap a bow on this year's festivities with our biggest takeaways from the 2026 March Madness, from the First Four games on March 17 and 18 through Monday's title game.
Thanks for reading along with us!
Winner: High Point's Rise to Relevance
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In their first 24 years playing at the D-I level, the High Point Panthers logged just nine winning seasons, and they were coming off a 14-17 campaign when Alan Huss took over as head coach for the 2023-24 season.
He won a school record 27 games in his first season at the helm, and took them to their first NCAA tournament the following year before departing for the head coach-in-waiting job at Creighton.
Associate head coach Flynn Clayman replaced him and went to work rebuilding the roster in the transfer portal. The result was a 30-4 season, including a 14-game winning streak heading into March Madness, and a No. 12 seed.
The Panthers hung around with No. 5 seed Wisconsin the entire game, and three-point specialist Chase Johnston picked the perfect time for his first two-pointer of the season, converting the game-winning layup with 11.7 seconds remaining in an 83-82 thriller.
They also put a scare into No. 4 seed Arkansas in the second round before falling 94-88, but this looks like a program on the rise and a mid-major to know.
Loser: Joshua Jefferson's Injury
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A No. 2 seed in the South Region and the No. 7 overall team on the selection committee's board, the Iowa State Cyclones were every bit a national title contender entering the NCAA tournament.
With 17:23 remaining in the first half of their first round matchup against No. 15 seed Tennessee State, forward Joshua Jefferson landed awkwardly following a layup, fell to the floor and had to be helped off the court.
The All-American had played his final minutes of the 2025-26 season.
The Cyclones went on to a 108-74 victory in that game, then crushed No. 7 seed Kentucky in an 82-63 blowout in the second round, but things fell apart against No. 6 seed Tennessee in the Sweet 16.
They shot just 38.9 percent from the floor and scored just 62 points, with Jefferson's 16.4 points, 7.4 rebounds and 4.8 assists per game glaringly missing from the action.
For an Iowa State squad that had the nation's No. 5 defense and its best offense in years, it will go down as a lingering "what if" in a season that saw them climb to their highest spot ever in the AP poll at No. 2.
Winner: Zuby Ejiofor's Draft Stock
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At 6'9", 240 pounds and with only 18 made threes at a 30.5 percent clip, Zuby Ejiofor does not fit a prototypical NBA archetype.
However, he stuffed the stat sheet all season, averaging 16.3 points, 7.3 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 2.1 blocks and 1.2 steals. Then he put together an excellent NCAA tournament to give NBA scouts a high-profile look at his game.
After logging his eighth double-double of the season in the first round against Northern Iowa, he more than held his own in the post with Flory Bidunga (Kansas) and Cameron Boozer (Duke).
He had 18 points, nine rebounds and four assists in the second round win over Kansas, and that was followed by 17 points, eight rebounds and six assists in a loss to Duke.
The Big East Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year already looked like a second-round pick entering March Madness, but his energy and impact really popped on the national stage, and that could be enough for him to climb into the back of the first round.
Loser: Cinderella, Again
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The 2025 men's NCAA tournament was one of the chalkiest March Madness brackets in recent memory, culminating in an Elite Eight made up of four No. 1 seeds, three No. 2 seeds and one No. 3 seed.
Only one double-digit seed survived the first weekend, and it was No. 10 seed Arkansas coming out of a loaded SEC that had a record-setting 14 teams in the field.
That made for some great basketball, but there was no Cinderella story, and that trend continued into the 2026 NCAA tournament.
Once again, only one double-digit seed was left standing in the Sweet 16 field, and once again it was an SEC bubble team as No. 11 seed Texas upset BYU and Gonzaga after playing in a First Four game.
A bracket-buster, sure, but far from a compelling Cinderella story.
In an age where mid-major teams are essentially serving as the minor league feeder for major conference powerhouses, and small school stars hit the transfer portal in search of NIL money, the traditional underdog story is no longer an annual part of the March Madness story.
Winner: Buzzer Beaters!
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Let's just take a moment and appreciate all the game winners and buzzer beaters the 2026 NCAA tournament provided:
Tramon Mark, Texas: Turnaround jumper with 1.1 seconds remaining in 68-66 win over NC State in First Four.
Xavier Edmonds, TCU: Layup with 4.3 seconds remaining in 66-64 win over Ohio State in First Round.
Chase Johnston, High Point: Fast-break layup with 11.7 seconds remaining in 83-82 upset win over Wisconsin in First Round.
Alvaro Folgueiras, Iowa: Three-pointer with 4.5 seconds remaining in 73-72 upset win over Florida in Second Round.
Dylan Darling, St. John's: Buzzer beater with 0.0 seconds remaining in 67-65 win over Kansas in Second Round.
Braden Frager, Nebraska: Layup with 2.2 seconds remaining in 74-72 win over Vanderbilt in Second Round.
Trey Kaufman-Renn, Purdue: Tip-in with 0.7 seconds remaining in 79-77 win over Texas in Sweet 16.
Braylon Mullins, UConn: Desperation heave with 0.4 seconds remaining in 73-72 win over Duke in Elite Eight.
What a ride!
Loser: Duke's Epic Collapse
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The Duke Blue Devils were the No. 1 overall seed in the 2026 NCAA tournament field, and just looking at this portion of the box score, there would be only one logical conclusion to draw:
Largest Leads: Duke 19, UConn 2
Percent of Time Leading: Duke 96%, UConn 2%
That's a Duke win, and a lopsided one, right?
Instead, it stands as the biggest collapse of the 2026 tournament and one of the more memorable in recent sports history, even spawning a reactionary article from yours truly titled Ranking the 20 Biggest Choke Jobs of the Century Across All Sports.
With a two-point lead and the ball, Duke point guard Cayden Boozer had his pass deflected as he tried to avoid a foul and run out the clock. Braylon Mullins came away with the loose ball and heaved a desperation 35-footer, drilling the game-winner with 0.4 seconds left on the clock.
It's the second year in a row the Blue Devils have been sent packing in dramatic fashion, and they are still searching for their first trip to the national championship game since 2015.
Winner: Alex Karaban's College Career
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The UConn Huskies had the No. 7 recruiting class in 2021, headlined by Jordan Hawkins, who is already in his third season with the New Orleans Pelicans.
The lowest-rated recruit in that five-man class was forward Alex Karaban out of IMG Academy, who ranked No. 118 in the class, and he ended up redshirting as a freshman.
Four years later, he just finished playing in his third national championship game.
He didn't join the short list of players with three rings in their collegiate career, but he has been a staple of March Madness for the last four years, and he went out with another rock solid performance on Monday night against the Michigan Wolverines.
His well-rounded game should make him a plug-and-play role player in the NBA, and there's potential for more if his outside shot fully translates after he connected at a 37.9 percent clip with 77 made threes during his senior season.
He was often overshadowed by flashier teammates, but over 151 career games at UConn, he was a key cog in a dynasty-level run with two national championships and a third title game appearance in the last four years.
Winner: The 2025-26 Michigan Wolverines
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Once again tasked with rebuilding almost the entire roster via the transfer portal, Michigan head coach Dusty May reeled in four of the top 60 recruits in the 2025 portal rankings at 247Sports.
Here's how those players had performed on the year entering Monday night's championship game, when all four were in the starting lineup:
1. Yaxel Lendeborg: 15.1 PPG, 6.9 RPG, 3.3 APG, Big Ten POY
26. Morez Johnson Jr.: 13.1 PPG, 7.3 RPG, 1.1 BPG
46. Aday Mara: 12.2 PPG, 6.8 RPG, 2.6 BPG, Big Ten DPOY
60. Elliot Cadeau: 10.3 PPG, 5.9 APG, 37.9 3PT%
With Lendeborg, Johnson and Mara standing 6'9", 6'9" and 7'3", there were questions of how all the pieces would fit together, and they ultimately added up to the nation's most dominant defensive team.
They averaged 6.1 blocks per game and held opponents to .441 shooting on two-point attempts, dominating games with their size en route to a 31-3 regular season and their first No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament since 2021.
They won their six NCAA tournament games by a combined 114 points, including statement wins over Alabama (90-77) and Arizona (91-73) before knocking off UConn by a 69-63 margin to win their first national championship since 1989.
Cadeau (19 points), Johnson (12 points, 10 rebounds) and a banged up Lendeborg (13 points) led the way, and the defense limited the UConn offense to 30.9 percent shooting in one final dominant showing.
Congrats to the 2025-26 Michigan Wolverines on their national title!
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