Preseason Bracketology: Our First 2026 NCAA Tournament Bracket Prediction

Our predictions for which teams will make the 2026 NCAA tournament as we get ready for the start of the 2025-26 college basketball season.

Last week, we released our preseason rankings and ratings, along with our preseason predictions for each conference. Here, we’ll provide our bracketology predictions for how the 2026 NCAA tournament will shape up as of the preseason. We are posting this on Monday, November 4th, before the first college basketball games tip off later in the same day.

How Did We Do With Last Year’s Preseason Bracketology?

Let’s first recap how last year’s preseason bracketology predictions performed compared to the actual 2025 NCAA tournament field.

  • 39 NCAA Tournament teams correct. Last year, we ended up with 39 tournament teams that were projected in our initial preseason bracket making the field. If you added up our tournament estimates on individual teams, we would have expected to get 39.1 teams correct. So we were pretty much on our preseason estimates overall.
  • Three of the four No. 1 seeds correct. Our projected No. 1 seeds last year were Houston, Duke, Alabama, and Auburn. So three of them did finish as a No. 1 seed, and the one that did not was in contention for it up until Selection Sunday, and got a No. 2 seed. Florida was our only miss here. We will note that this was not the consensus top four entering the year. The polls and many predictors did not have Auburn and Duke in their top 4 to start the year, even though they were close. Kansas was the preseason No. 1 in both polls.
  • 24 projected teams within two seed lines of actual results. Of the 39 teams we correctly projected in the field, 24 of them were within 2 seed lines of where they ended up.
  • Only 2 teams on the top 7 seed lines failed to make the NCAA Tournament. Cincinnati and Indiana were the only teams projected in our Top 25 to miss the field, and Indiana just missed on Selection Sunday.
  • 22 conferences correctly projected as one-bid. The only conference that produced an at-large that we did not project with two teams in the preseason bracketology was the Mountain West (though we projected an average of 2.1 making it, several were just below our cut line).
  • Maryland, Wisconsin, Missouri, and Louisville were our biggest misses: Wisconsin and Maryland were the only two teams to appear on the top 4 seed lines in the 2025 NCAA Tournament who were not in our field (they were the first two out in our preseason release). Missouri, as a No. 6 seed, coming off a winless SEC conference record the year before, was the only other team on the top 7 seed lines that was not projected in our field. Louisville, which turned things around in Year 1 with Pat Kelsey as head coach, was the next highest seed not in our field.

We weren’t perfect, but we didn’t expect to be. Again, we made these NCAA tournament predictions before the first game of the 2025-26 season.

In the end, we were about even overall on the number of teams to make the tournament, almost perfectly nailed the top seed line (and teams that ultimately made the Final Four), and had nearly all the teams in our Top 7 seed lines make the tournament.

Pretty good for early November!

Now, on to our 2026 NCAA tournament projected bracket.

Preseason Projected No. 1 NCAA Seeds in 2025-26

Here are our projected No. 1 seeds in the 2025 NCAA tournament:

  • Houston (55% chance)
  • Purdue (46% chance)
  • Duke (24% chance)
  • Florida (18% chance)

We have Houston and Purdue at notably higher odds than the other two, and Connecticut is only narrowly behind Florida for the Final No. 1 spot. Add all these up, and we would expect to get 1.43 top seeds correct, or between 1 and 2 this year.

Now, on to the rest of the bracket…

2025-26 Projected NCAA Tournament Bracket (Preseason Edition)

Here is a bracket putting each of the teams into a specific matchup. If you just want to see the projected seeds, you can go down to the table at the bottom of this post. The bracket generally follows the seed list you will see below, though we did move a couple of teams a seed line because of bracketing rules and conference restrictions on matchups.

For details on how this bracket was created, see our original Madness Strikes November blog post. That post goes into more detail, but the basic idea is:

  1. Simulate the regular season
  2. Seed and play out the conference tournaments
  3. Simulate the NCAA tournament selection and seeding process

2025-26 NCAA Bid Odds for All 365 Teams

Our NCAA selection and seeding model doesn’t directly produce the projected bracket you see above. The model’s output is a set of odds describing each team’s chance to make the NCAA tournament and to earn each specific seed (among other info).

The bracket is created at the end based on those odds. However, we also use some manual intervention to assign teams to specific bracket lines.

What does that mean for you? It means you get to see lots of juicy data, if you desire.

Below, you’ll find our official 2026 NCAA Tournament preseason projected bracketology odds for every team. Other pages on our site will be updating various odds on a daily basis as each day’s game results come in:

Some Final Tips for Understanding Our Bracketology Odds

Creating a single projected bracket where every team is either in or out is a bit different than creating projected bid odds, which allow for more nuance.

For example, in one-bid conferences, we list the team we project as most likely to win the conference tournament in our bracket. However, in many cases, that team is still far more likely to miss the tournament than to make it. A handful of teams in the conference may have a reasonable, but well below 50%, chance to reach the tournament.

A more interesting case is what happens around the at-large bubble. This preseason, the at-large cutline is around 50%. Teams projected with a higher than 50% chance of making the tournament are in our single bracket, while teams with lower odds are not (unless they are projected conference champions).

This can create clusters of teams in certain conferences or groups of conferences that are just above or just below the cutline. As a result, just counting up the number of teams in the bracket for those conferences or groups may make their outlook look better or worse than it really is.

For comparison, here is the number of teams from potential multi-bid conferences appearing in our bracket projections (37 at-larges plus 9 auto bids) versus the number of teams we expect from each conference when we add up each individual team’s chances of making the tournament:

ConferenceTeams in FieldExpected NCAA Teams
BIG TEN1210.3
SEC129.8
BIG 1277.2
ACC46.1
BIG EAST55.1
MOUNTAIN WEST32.5
WCC12.0
ATLANTIC 1011.7
AMERICAN11.1

The ACC has two fewer specific teams in our initial bracket than we would project overall from the conference. It’s just harder to identify which of those teams will make it. Clemson is our “First Team Out” and by the odds (54%) we would see they are more likely than not to make the tournament. They just happen to fall just below several others. Six other ACC teams are also outside our field, but have at least a 20% chance to make the tournament. You add the odds for those seven (including Clemson), and we would estimate that 2.5 of them make the tournament on average. But which ones?

The same is true in the opposite direction of the Big Ten and SEC, where more teams are getting in this initial bracket than we would project for the conferences as a whole. Will the SEC really get 12 bids? Probably not. (But you would also not have come close to projecting the 14 actual that they got last year.) But it’s going to probably get a lot of bids, and teams that finish middle of the pack or slightly worse should be in play for an at-large. At the bubble, we are trying to hit around 50% before the season starts, and the individual teams in the SEC give us a better chance of doing that, even if it’s unlikely we correctly pick all of them.

The West Coast is another area where we project 2.0 teams to make it, but Saint Mary’s falls just outside our field individually. Collectively, the odds for all the remaining WCC teams add up to the likelihood that two total WCC teams get in, but none make the individual cut.

Last year, the American, Atlantic 10, Mountain West, and West Coast Conferences combined for 8 bids: four at-large and four auto bids.

This year, we project 7.3 teams from that group of four conferences to make the NCAA Tournament. Gonzaga is the only team from that group of conferences inside our Top 25 in preseason ratings, but eight more appear between No. 45 and No. 70 in our ratings.

Without Further Ado…

Here are our 2025-26 preseason bracketology odds for every team:

TR BRACKET SEEDTEAMBIDAUTOAT-LARGEAVG SEED IF IN1-4 SEED1 SEED
1Houston99%38%60%2.090%55%
1Purdue98%29%69%2.583%46%
1Duke97%30%66%3.965%24%
1Florida91%15%76%4.354%18%
2UConn93%30%63%4.356%16%
2Kentucky87%13%74%4.747%14%
2St John's93%24%69%4.948%13%
2Kansas86%10%76%4.747%13%
3Michigan88%11%77%4.846%13%
3Gonzaga88%55%34%4.945%12%
3Louisville90%19%71%5.144%10%
3Alabama82%11%71%4.842%12%
4Arizona85%10%75%4.943%11%
4Tennessee84%11%73%5.042%11%
4UCLA83%10%73%5.041%9%
4Illinois87%10%77%5.340%9%
5BYU89%9%80%5.440%9%
5Texas Tech84%9%74%5.140%9%
5Michigan St84%8%76%5.437%9%
5Iowa St74%9%65%5.135%7%
6Ohio St80%8%73%5.634%7%
6Auburn78%8%70%5.731%7%
6Arkansas77%7%70%6.127%6%
6Baylor66%6%61%5.725%5%
7North Carolina73%11%62%6.225%4%
7Mississippi St72%6%67%6.224%5%
7Creighton73%13%60%6.622%3%
7Missouri64%6%59%6.321%3%
8Vanderbilt64%5%59%6.618%3%
8USC67%3%63%6.817%2%
8Wisconsin66%4%62%6.917%2%
8Oregon66%3%63%7.016%2%
9Texas60%5%55%6.616%2%
9Villanova68%9%59%7.216%2%
9Iowa61%4%58%6.716%2%
9Marquette67%9%58%7.414%2%
10NC State64%6%57%7.314%2%
10Maryland60%3%57%7.114%2%
10San Diego St62%24%37%7.313%1%
10Mississippi59%4%55%6.915%2%
11Georgia59%4%55%7.014%2%
11Utah St61%22%39%7.312%1%
11Boise St59%21%38%7.511%1%
11Indiana58%3%56%7.511%1%
11VCU55%32%23%6.715%1%
11Memphis44%31%12%9.04%0%
12Bradley21%21%0%11.00%0%
12Yale44%44%0%11.31%0%
12Liberty25%25%0%11.40%0%
12Akron27%27%0%12.20%0%
13UC Irvine28%28%0%12.40%0%
13NC Wilmington24%24%0%12.70%0%
13Troy18%18%0%12.90%0%
13Chattanooga26%26%0%12.90%0%
14High Point29%29%0%13.10%0%
14McNeese40%40%0%13.50%0%
14Utah Valley30%30%0%13.60%0%
14S Dakota St27%27%0%13.70%0%
15Wright St18%18%0%14.10%0%
15E Kentucky22%22%0%14.20%0%
15N Colorado17%17%0%14.20%0%
15Iona19%19%0%14.20%0%
16Little Rock19%19%0%14.80%0%
16LIU25%25%0%15.70%0%
16Vermont34%34%0%14.80%0%
16Colgate23%23%0%14.80%0%
16Norfolk St34%34%0%15.20%0%
16Southern24%24%0%14.80%0%
Clemson54%7%47%6.714%1%
Saint Mary's49%20%29%7.78%0%
Washington48%2%46%7.78%1%
Providence47%7%40%7.210%1%
SMU47%7%40%6.613%1%
Virginia42%5%37%7.29%1%
Cincinnati40%3%37%6.412%1%
Texas A&M39%3%36%7.08%1%
Dayton38%16%22%8.73%0%
Oklahoma35%2%33%7.17%1%
Xavier33%3%29%8.63%0%
Pittsburgh32%3%30%8.14%0%
Northwestern28%1%27%8.33%0%
Nebraska28%1%27%7.64%0%
San Francisco28%10%18%9.32%0%
Notre Dame27%3%24%8.03%0%
TCU25%2%23%6.76%1%
Wake Forest24%2%22%8.52%0%
St Thomas23%23%0%14.00%0%
C Connecticut23%23%0%15.80%0%
LSU23%1%22%8.23%0%
Navy22%22%0%14.80%0%
Furman22%22%0%13.10%0%
Cal Baptist21%21%0%13.90%0%
Syracuse20%2%19%9.02%0%
Cornell20%20%0%13.10%0%
N Iowa19%18%1%11.10%0%
Lipscomb19%19%0%14.40%0%
N Alabama18%18%0%14.40%0%
Winthrop18%18%0%13.70%0%
New Mexico18%7%11%9.31%0%
UCSD18%18%0%13.00%0%
Towson18%18%0%12.80%0%
Hawai'i18%18%0%13.10%0%
J Madison18%18%0%12.90%0%
E Tennessee St17%17%0%13.40%0%
UNLV17%9%8%10.50%0%
Butler17%2%15%9.21%0%
NC Asheville17%17%0%13.70%0%
Youngstown St17%17%0%14.20%0%
N Texas16%16%0%10.60%0%
Charleston16%16%0%12.90%0%
FGCU16%16%0%14.60%0%
Ohio16%16%0%12.80%0%
Radford16%16%0%13.90%0%
Arizona St16%0%15%9.41%0%
S Carolina St16%16%0%15.70%0%
Saint Louis15%11%5%9.11%0%
SE Missouri St15%15%0%15.00%0%
Purdue FW15%15%0%14.20%0%
Abl Christian15%15%0%14.20%0%
Kent St15%15%0%12.90%0%
Bethune15%15%0%15.10%0%
G Washington15%10%5%9.31%0%
Oakland15%15%0%14.20%0%
N Dakota St15%15%0%14.40%0%
Jackson St14%14%0%15.30%0%
Tennessee St14%14%0%14.90%0%
Bryant14%14%0%15.30%0%
Omaha14%14%0%14.50%0%
Kansas St14%1%13%7.32%0%
UMass Lowell14%14%0%15.40%0%
SIU Edward14%14%0%15.00%0%
UT Arlington14%14%0%14.30%0%
Montana13%13%0%14.40%0%
Quinnipiac13%13%0%14.70%0%
Howard13%13%0%15.80%0%
Delaware St13%13%0%15.80%0%
Miami13%2%11%8.01%0%
Illinois St13%12%1%11.80%0%
Miami OH13%13%0%13.20%0%
Arkansas St13%13%0%13.20%0%
NC Central13%13%0%15.80%0%
Nevada13%4%8%10.10%0%
Chicago St13%13%0%15.90%0%
Santa Clara12%5%8%10.10%0%
UCSB12%12%0%13.20%0%
Virginia Tech12%1%11%8.71%0%
St Francis PA12%12%0%15.90%0%
Portland St12%12%0%14.50%0%
Boston U12%12%0%15.20%0%
Belmont12%12%0%11.90%0%
Colorado St12%6%6%9.51%0%
Stonehill11%11%0%15.90%0%
George Mason11%8%4%9.41%0%
S Indiana11%11%0%15.20%0%
S Alabama11%11%0%13.40%0%
Montana St11%11%0%14.50%0%
Minnesota11%0%11%9.01%0%
Texas So11%11%0%15.50%0%
Marist11%11%0%14.80%0%
Incarnate Word11%11%0%14.00%0%
UCF11%0%10%8.21%0%
Oregon St10%5%5%10.00%0%
Idaho10%10%0%14.60%0%
Samford10%10%0%13.80%0%
Bucknell10%10%0%15.20%0%
Siena10%10%0%14.70%0%
Longwood10%10%0%14.20%0%
Colorado10%0%10%8.41%0%
E Washington10%10%0%14.60%0%
Murray St10%10%0%12.20%0%
Toledo10%10%0%13.30%0%
Robert Morris10%10%0%14.50%0%
Harvard10%10%0%13.30%0%
Utah10%0%9%8.21%0%
SF Austin10%10%0%14.10%0%
F Dickinson10%10%0%15.90%0%
UMBC10%10%0%15.50%0%
Maine10%10%0%15.40%0%
Grand Canyon10%5%5%9.90%0%
Georgetown9%1%9%9.80%0%
Drake9%9%0%12.20%0%
W Kentucky9%9%0%12.50%0%
Princeton9%9%0%13.10%0%
Oklahoma St9%1%9%7.22%0%
New Mexico St9%9%0%12.60%0%
Merrimack9%9%0%14.80%0%
Kennesaw St9%9%0%12.70%0%
Milwaukee9%9%0%14.50%0%
Middle Tenn9%9%0%12.60%0%
Grambling9%9%0%15.50%0%
Tulane9%8%0%11.10%0%
UAB9%8%0%11.20%0%
Sacramento St8%8%0%14.80%0%
Morehead St8%8%0%15.30%0%
Morgan St8%8%0%15.90%0%
Jacksonville St8%8%0%12.80%0%
Hofstra8%8%0%13.50%0%
Louisiana Tech8%8%0%12.80%0%
Alabama St8%8%0%15.60%0%
Texas St8%8%0%13.50%0%
UTEP8%8%0%12.80%0%
Rutgers8%0%8%9.50%0%
Penn St8%0%8%9.60%0%
Queens8%8%0%14.90%0%
CS Northridge8%8%0%13.60%0%
South Carolina8%0%7%8.41%0%
Brown8%8%0%13.50%0%
S Utah8%8%0%14.80%0%
Sacred Heart8%8%0%15.00%0%
Duquesne8%6%1%10.20%0%
App State8%8%0%13.60%0%
Wofford7%7%0%14.20%0%
American7%7%0%15.40%0%
Georgia Tech7%1%7%8.91%0%
NC Greensboro7%7%0%14.10%0%
Albany7%7%0%15.60%0%
Texas A&M-CC7%7%0%14.40%0%
Mt St Mary's7%7%0%15.10%0%
Lafayette7%7%0%15.50%0%
Old Dominion7%7%0%13.60%0%
Cleveland St7%7%0%14.60%0%
Nicholls7%7%0%14.20%0%
Manhattan7%7%0%15.10%0%
Marshall7%7%0%13.60%0%
West Virginia7%1%6%6.91%0%
S Florida7%6%1%11.60%0%
Stanford7%1%6%8.90%0%
Lehigh7%7%0%15.40%0%
Wagner7%7%0%16.00%0%
Wichita St7%6%0%11.50%0%
DePaul7%1%5%8.90%0%
Binghamton7%7%0%15.70%0%
UMass6%6%0%13.60%0%
Loyola Chi6%3%3%10.50%0%
Campbell6%6%0%13.80%0%
Jacksonville6%6%0%15.00%0%
Utah Tech6%6%0%15.00%0%
S Illinois6%6%0%12.60%0%
Temple6%6%0%11.70%0%
Alabama A&M6%6%0%15.70%0%
Weber St6%6%0%15.00%0%
Idaho St6%6%0%15.00%0%
Tarleton St6%6%0%15.10%0%
Loyola MD6%6%0%15.50%0%
CS Bakersfield6%6%0%13.80%0%
SE Louisiana6%6%0%14.30%0%
South Dakota6%6%0%15.20%0%
Illinois Chicago6%6%0%12.80%0%
Saint Peter's5%5%0%15.20%0%
N Arizona5%5%0%15.00%0%
Austin Peay5%5%0%15.10%0%
Missouri St5%5%0%13.30%0%
Lamar5%5%0%14.40%0%
N Kentucky5%5%0%14.80%0%
Florida St5%0%5%9.80%0%
Oral Roberts5%5%0%15.30%0%
Alcorn St5%5%0%15.70%0%
UT Rio Grande5%5%0%14.50%0%
Monmouth5%5%0%14.00%0%
Presbyterian5%5%0%14.90%0%
Indiana St5%5%0%12.80%0%
Kansas City5%5%0%15.30%0%
Dartmouth5%5%0%13.90%0%
Sam Houston4%4%0%13.20%0%
NW State4%4%0%14.50%0%
William & Mary4%4%0%14.00%0%
St Bonaventure4%3%1%10.90%0%
Florida A&M4%4%0%15.60%0%
California4%1%4%8.50%0%
Drexel4%4%0%14.10%0%
Lindenwood4%4%0%15.50%0%
UT Martin4%4%0%15.50%0%
Mercer4%4%0%14.50%0%
Saint Joseph's4%4%0%11.00%0%
Elon4%4%0%14.10%0%
Florida Atlantic4%4%0%11.70%0%
Washington St4%2%2%11.00%0%
Fairfield4%4%0%15.40%0%
Northeastern4%4%0%14.00%0%
Tulsa4%4%0%12.20%0%
Louisiana4%4%0%13.80%0%
Rice3%3%0%12.20%0%
E Illinois3%3%0%15.60%0%
Hampton3%3%0%14.30%0%
Tenn Tech3%3%0%15.60%0%
Rider3%3%0%15.30%0%
North Dakota3%3%0%15.60%0%
Army3%3%0%15.60%0%
Bowling Green3%3%0%14.20%0%
UC Davis3%3%0%14.10%0%
E Carolina3%3%0%12.30%0%
W Illinois3%3%0%15.60%0%
Ball St3%3%0%14.30%0%
Maryland ES3%3%0%16.00%0%
Prairie View3%3%0%15.80%0%
New Hampshire3%3%0%15.80%0%
Stony Brook3%3%0%14.20%0%
Columbia3%3%0%14.20%0%
New Orleans3%3%0%14.80%0%
Davidson3%2%1%11.20%0%
Georgia So3%3%0%14.00%0%
Detroit Mercy3%3%0%15.10%0%
Florida Intl3%3%0%13.40%0%
Gardner-Webb3%3%0%15.20%0%
Denver3%3%0%15.60%0%
Cal Poly3%3%0%14.20%0%
Hou Christian3%3%0%14.80%0%
VMI3%3%0%15.00%0%
Seton Hall3%0%2%10.30%0%
UC Riverside2%2%0%14.20%0%
Rhode Island2%2%1%11.40%0%
Long Beach St2%2%0%14.20%0%
W Carolina2%2%0%15.00%0%
Holy Cross2%2%0%15.70%0%
Penn2%2%0%14.30%0%
Charlotte2%2%0%12.30%0%
Niagara2%2%0%15.60%0%
Loyola Mymt2%1%1%11.00%0%
Bellarmine2%2%0%15.50%0%
N Florida2%2%0%15.50%0%
Coastal Car2%2%0%14.20%0%
Canisius2%2%0%15.60%0%
NJIT2%2%0%15.90%0%
Richmond2%2%0%11.40%0%
UTSA2%2%0%12.50%0%
San Jose St2%1%1%11.50%0%
Seattle2%1%0%11.10%0%
E Michigan2%2%0%14.70%0%
Charleston So2%2%0%15.30%0%
C Michigan2%2%0%14.60%0%
Green Bay2%2%0%15.30%0%
Georgia St2%2%0%14.60%0%
Delaware1%1%0%13.80%0%
Southern Miss1%1%0%14.30%0%
Boston College1%0%1%10.20%0%
La Salle1%1%1%12.00%0%
W Michigan1%1%0%14.70%0%
SC Upstate1%1%0%15.50%0%
Wyoming1%1%0%11.50%0%
Valparaiso1%1%0%13.90%0%
Evansville1%1%0%13.90%0%
Stetson1%1%0%15.60%0%
Fordham1%1%0%12.60%0%
N Illinois1%1%0%14.90%0%
E Texas A&M1%1%0%15.20%0%
The Citadel1%1%0%15.20%0%
AR-Pine Bluff1%1%0%16.00%0%
Buffalo1%1%0%15.10%0%
San Diego0%0%0%12.30%0%
CS Fullerton0%0%0%14.50%0%
NC A&T0%0%0%15.00%0%
Fresno St0%0%0%12.20%0%
IU Indy0%0%0%15.80%0%
C Arkansas0%0%0%15.70%0%
UL Monroe0%0%0%15.10%0%
Pacific0%0%0%12.80%0%
Pepperdine0%0%0%12.60%0%
Portland0%0%0%13.30%0%
Air Force0%0%0%13.30%0%
Miss Valley St0%0%0%16.00%0%
Le Moyne0%0%0%0.00%0%
W Georgia0%0%0%0.00%0%
New Haven0%0%0%0.00%0%
Mercyhurst0%0%0%0.00%0%
Coppin St0%0%0%0.00%0%