NCAA Bracketology: 2026 March Madness men's field predictions

Joe Lunardi's Bracketology piece for ESPN projects the 2026 NCAA Tournament men's field and was updated 3/7/26, 8:45pm ET.

“2026 NCAA TournamentMen’s Bracketology by Joe Lunardi”

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He notes that a team's seed history is telling and that readers can track each team's storyline by clicking its name.

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He wrote that the bracket will be updated along with the rest of the bracket during Champ Week and right up through Selection Sunday.

Lunardi lists Duke as the Top Overall Seed, Auburn as the Last Team In, and Indiana as the First Team Out in his current projection.

Lunardi highlights Miami (Ohio) as "the nation's most prominent potential bid stealer."

He says that if Miami doesn't win the Mid-American Conference tournament and the selection committee still selects the RedHawks, another team will be left out.

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He singles out Saint Louis in the Atlantic 10 and Gonzaga, Saint Mary's and Santa Clara in the West Coast Conference — and possibly South Florida in the American — as teams whose conference upsets could create bid thieves.

He warns that if those conferences produce upset auto-bid winners, one or more bubble teams will suffer on Selection Sunday, and that hard-luck bubble team might even be Miami (Ohio).

Lunardi uses the bracket to place top seeds across regions.

“2026 NCAA TournamentMen’s Bracketology by Joe Lunardi”

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He shows Duke as a 1 seed in the East (Washington DC/Greenville).

He shows Florida as a 1 seed in the South (Houston/Tampa).

He shows Michigan as a 1 seed in the Midwest (Chicago/Buffalo).

He shows Arizona as a 1 seed in the West (San Jose/San Diego).

He lists a wide field of teams and identifies an on-the-bubble group that includes Texas A&M, Texas, Missouri, UCF, Santa Clara, SMU, VCU, Auburn, Indiana, Virginia Tech, New Mexico, Cincinnati, California, Stanford, San Diego St and Seton Hall.

Lunardi places the field into conference multi-bid counts, showing 11 SEC, 9 Big Ten, 8 ACC, 8 Big 12, 3 Big East, 3 West Coast and 2 Atlantic 10 teams in the bracket.

The piece was produced by ESPN Creative Studio (Janice Algenio, Dominique DeMoe, Jarret Gabel, Scott Hoecker, Elliott Muñoz, Beth Stojkov, Rachel Weiss), written by Joe Lunardi, edited by Vritti Goel and Katie Richcreek, with animations by Jing Zhang.

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