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Duke is the people’s choice — again.
For the second year in a row, the Blue Devils are the most popular national championship team in the Men’s Bracket Challenge Game. For this year’s March Madness, No. 1 Duke wins the title on 25.15 percent of brackets. That’s down slightly from last year’s Cooper Flagg-led team of 30.97 percent, but it’s still well ahead of the competition.
The other three No. 1 seeds follow Duke in popularity, with Arizona (18.08 percent), Michigan (12.82 percent) and defending champion Florida (6.62 percent). Houston is next as the top No. 2 seed at 5.88 percent.
Since we’ve been tracking brackets for the 2014 tournament, three of the most-picked teams ended up winning the crown: 2017 North Carolina, 2018 Villanova and 2024 UConn.
Some other fun data to know:
The four No. 1 seeds — Duke, Arizona, Michigan and Florida — combine to be the champions on 62.64 percent of brackets. Last year, all four top seeds made the Final Four for only the second time ever.
No. 3 Gonzaga at 3.35 percent is more popular than two of the No. 2 seeds (Purdue and Iowa State).
No. 4 Arkansas (2.60) is more picked than three of the No. 3 seeds (Michigan State, Illinois, Virginia).
Saint Louis is a No. 9 seed but is the 16th-most popular title pick at 0.81 percent.
Here are all teams picked to win it all by at least 1 percent of Men’s Bracket Challenge Game entries:
Team
% Picked to win the title
No. 1 Duke
25.12
No. 1 Arizona
18.08
No. 1 Michigan
12.82
No. 1 Florida
6.62
No. 2 Houston
5.88
No. 2 UConn
3.43
No. 3 Gonzaga
3.35
No. 2 Purdue
2.96
No. 2 Iowa State
2.65
No. 4 Arkansas
2.60
No. 3 Michigan State
1.87
No. 3 Illinois
1.38
No. 3 Virginia
1.05
No. 4 Kansas
1.00
No. 5 St. John’s
1.00
Wayne Staats is a senior interactive producer for NCAA.com. His work has also appeared in the Augusta Chronicle, augusta.com and Land of 10. He is a graduate of Penn State University.
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