Bracketology

Welcome to our Bracketology page! Here we plan to prep you for everything that will take place during March Madness! To come up with our bracketology predictions, we use a combination of variables including our own NCAA college basketball ratings, RPI, strength of schedule (SOS), and few other factors to come up with the Bracket Rating. As is customary with the NCAA tournament, we also include the automatic qualifiers which are the champions from the conference tournaments. If the conference champion hasn’t yet been determined, then the highest rated team is predicted to be the champion. All of the factors that we use are key indicators that are very good predictors of which teams will make the final tournament.

Note that below there are 68 teams that make the NCAA tournament, and the winners of each conference are automatically included in the tournament. Because there are four play-in games, there are 2 seed groups that will have more than 4 teams.

Early in the season (pre-January) a lot of the teams may appear to have some strange seedings. Before teams get into conference play, there is a lot of projection that needs to be done to seed the teams. As we get into January and February, the projections are slowly worked out of the equation and only actual results are used.

* denotes that the team gets an automatic bid due to winning their conference.
# denotes first round play-in game

Final: Updated on 3/15/2026 @ 5:00pm EST.

Bracketology – NCAA Tournament – Bubble Teams

The team listed at the top of the “Last Four In” is the most vulnerable to miss the tournament.

Bracketology – 2026 NCAA Tournament Seeding Predictions

The introduction of the College Basketball Crown tournament in 2025 will significantly complicate NIT projections. This new 16-team event, launching March 31 to April 6, 2025, in Las Vegas, will compete directly with the NIT for teams that don’t make the NCAA Tournament. With automatic entries for two teams each from the Big Ten, Big 12, and Big East, plus additional selections by a committee, the Crown will likely attract high-quality teams that might have otherwise considered the NIT. Below are the teams that are likely to go to the CBC rather than the NIT.

Bracketology – College Basketball Crown Bids

Until we have more information, these NIT projections will assume (likely wrongly) that the NIT takes the top talent that doesn’t make the NCAA Tournament and isn’t in the list above.

The 32-team NIT field for 2026 will be filled through three selection methods:

1. 16 Exempt Teams:

1. Four spots reserved for top two non-NCAA Tournament teams from ACC and SEC
2. Twelve spots for the top non-NCAA Tournament team from each of the top 12 conferences (based on KenPom ratings)

2. Automatic Qualifiers:

1. Regular season conference champions not selected for NCAA Tournament
2. Must have an average ranking of 125 or better across seven metrics (BPI, KPI, NET, KenPom, SOR, Torvik, WAB)

3. At-Large Selections:

1. Remaining spots filled by NIT Committee selection
2. Additional Note: All exempt teams are guaranteed to host their first-round games.

The tournament will begin on March 18, 2026, with the championship game scheduled for April 5, 2026, at Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

Note:The NIT bracket is locked as of 3/13/2026. With opt-outs and the crazy qualifying rules, this has just been too difficult to accurately project.

Bracketology – 2026 NIT Tournament Seeding Predictions