{"id":446745,"date":"2025-12-01T17:33:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T17:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/446745\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T17:33:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T17:33:11","slug":"predicting-the-2026-ncaa-tournament-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/446745\/","title":{"rendered":"Predicting the 2026 NCAA Tournament field"},"content":{"rendered":"

The college basketball season is in full swing! Feast Week brought a whole lot of great basketball, and even more discourse about the crowds at the Players Era Festival.<\/p>\n

Fan discourse aside, Las Vegas was the center of the college basketball world leading up to Thanksgiving, and it was the Michigan Wolverines that made a statement<\/a>. Dusty May’s squad ran through the tournament straight to the $1 million prize, crushing San Diego State, Auburn and Gonzaga (who was also very impressive) by a combined 110 points (!!!) to win the tournament.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, Florida faltered in San Diego and is facing some serious questions about its backcourt while Vanderbilt quietly tore through the Battle 4 Atlantis with a couple of scintillating offensive performances. Outside of the tournament scene, UConn picked up a big win over Illinois and Duke took down Arkansas behind a monster game from Cam Boozer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

How does all of that shake out in the first bracket of the season?<\/p>\n

Bold = Automatic qualifier<\/p>\n

Note \u2013 Without conference games underway, the AQ for each conference is awarded to the highest-rated team<\/a> from each league according to KenPom.<\/p>\n

Midwest Region<\/p>\n

1. Michigan
16. Tennessee State\/Long Island<\/p>\n

8. Baylor
9. Clemson<\/p>\n

5. Kentucky
12. Akron<\/p>\n

4. BYU
13. Hawai’i<\/p>\n

6. Indiana
11. SMU\/Creighton<\/p>\n

3. Alabama
14. Liberty<\/p>\n

7. LSU
10. Utah State<\/p>\n

2. Arizona
15. Colgate<\/p>\n

South Region<\/p>\n

1. Purdue
16. North Dakota State<\/p>\n

8. Missouri
9. NC State<\/p>\n

5. North Carolina
12. Belmont<\/p>\n

4. Florida
13. UNC Wilmington<\/p>\n

6. Arkansas
11. Virginia\/Kansas State<\/p>\n

3. Louisville
14. East Tennessee State<\/p>\n

7. St. Mary’s
10. Nebraska<\/p>\n

2. Houston
15. Northern Colorado<\/p>\n

East Region<\/p>\n

1. Duke
16. Vermont<\/p>\n

8. USC
9. Oklahoma State<\/p>\n

5. St. John’s
12. Yale<\/p>\n

4. Vanderbilt
13. Utah Valley<\/p>\n

6. Auburn
11. VCU<\/p>\n

3. Michigan State
14. Troy<\/p>\n

7. Texas Tech
10. Wisconsin<\/p>\n

2. UConn
15. Lipscomb<\/p>\n

West Region<\/p>\n

1. Gonzaga
16. Southern\/Norfolk State<\/p>\n

8. UCLA
9. Georgia<\/p>\n

5. Kansas
12. McNeese<\/p>\n

4. Illinois
13. High Point<\/p>\n

6. Iowa
11. Memphis<\/p>\n

3. Tennessee
14. Oakland<\/p>\n

7. Ohio State
10. Texas<\/p>\n

2. Iowa State
15. Marist<\/p>\n

Bubble Watch<\/p>\n

Last Four Byes:\u00a0Oklahoma State, Georgia, Nebraska, Texas<\/p>\n

Last Four In:\u00a0SMU, Virginia, Creighton, Kansas State<\/p>\n

First Four Out:\u00a0Villanova, Colorado, Santa Clara, St. Louis<\/p>\n

Next Four Out:\u00a0Ole Miss, Oklahoma, Wake Forest, UCF<\/p>\n

Multi-bid leagues<\/p>\n

SEC \u2013 11<\/p>\n

Big Ten \u2013 11<\/p>\n

Big 12 \u2013 9<\/p>\n

ACC \u2013 7<\/p>\n

Big East \u2013 3<\/p>\n

WCC \u2013 2<\/p>\n

Games of the Week<\/p>\n

Tuesday, Dec. 2 \u2013 Florida at Duke<\/p>\n

Tuesday, Dec. 2 \u2013 UConn at Kansas<\/p>\n

Tuesday, Dec. 2 \u2013 North Carolina at Kentucky<\/p>\n

Tuesday, Dec. 2 \u2013 Iowa at Michigan State<\/p>\n

Wednesday, Dec. 3 \u2013 Louisville at Arkansas<\/p>\n

Friday, Dec. 5 \u2013 Gonzaga at Kentucky<\/p>\n

Saturday, Dec. 6 \u2013 Iowa State at Purdue<\/p>\n

Saturday, Dec. 6 \u2013 Duke at Michigan State<\/p>\n

Saturday, Dec. 6 -Louisville vs. Indiana (in Indianapolis)<\/p>\n

Saturday, Dec. 6 \u2013 Illinois vs. Tennessee (in Nashville)<\/p>\n

Saturday, Dec. 6 \u2013 Auburn at Arizona<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The college basketball season is in full swing! Feast Week brought a whole lot of great basketball, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,10872,217,7456,10369,231,772,1544],"class_list":{"0":"post-446745","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-bracketology","10":"tag-college-basketball","11":"tag-march-madness","12":"tag-mini-editorials","13":"tag-ncaa","14":"tag-ncaa-basketball","15":"tag-ncaab"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}