The Duke Blue Devils are more likely to be the highest total seed within the 2026 NCAA Division I males’s school basketball match after a 74-70 win over Virginia in Saturday’s ACC Match title sport.
Jacob Kupferman/Getty Photos
cover caption
toggle caption
Jacob Kupferman/Getty Photos
March Insanity is upon us. It is Choice Sunday, the day the brackets for the boys’s and girls’s NCAA Division I school basketball tournaments can be launched.
The 32-2 Duke Blue Devils, contemporary off a 74-70 win within the ACC Match championship sport on Saturday over Virginia, are anticipated to be the highest total seed within the males’s match. On the ladies’s aspect, the UConn Huskies will enter the NCAA match undefeated for the primary time since 2018.
The choice present for the boys’s match begins at 6 p.m. ET on CBS. The ladies’s bracket can be unveiled afterward at 8 p.m. on ESPN.
The boys’s bracket
Duke is 32-2, contemporary off an ACC title, and accidents to 2 key gamers (guard Caleb Foster and middle Patrick Ngongba) have not slowed the Blue Devils down. They’re going to doubtless be the highest total seed with ambitions of constructing the varsity’s nineteenth all-time Closing 4 look.
There are two different colleges with a protected declare for a No. 1 seed: Arizona, who’re additionally 32-2, and Michigan, who have been 31-2 going into Sunday’s Huge Ten title sport towards Purdue.
That leaves the query of which staff will earn the ultimate high spot. Contenders embody Houston, UConn and Florida, the defending nationwide champions.
One other huge query dealing with the choice committee is what to do with Miami (OH): The RedHawks are 31-1, their single loss coming just some days in the past within the quarterfinals of their convention match. A one-loss staff has by no means missed the match. However the RedHawks have performed one of many best schedules in Division I; they’ve performed no ranked groups or main convention groups — their greatest win is over… Akron? The statistician and analyst Ken Pomeroy has them ranked No. 93, which might be traditionally low for an at-large bid.
One of many largest thrills of this season has been the unusually proficient freshman class. That’ll proceed within the match as these gamers arrive on the largest stage of their younger careers up to now.
Forwards AJ Dybantsa of BYU and Duke’s Cameron Boozer (one in all two fraternal twin sons of NBA star Carlos Boozer, each of whom are enjoying in Durham), together with guard Darryn Peterson of Kansas (regardless of persistent points with cramps), are anticipated to be the highest three picks on this summer time’s NBA draft.
Kansas and BYU usually tend to be longer photographs within the 4- to 6-seed vary.
UConn ahead Sarah Robust (#21) and guard Azzi Fudd (#35) are two of the most effective gamers in ladies’s school basketball this season. The Huskies are undefeated going into the NCAA match.
Joe Buglewicz/Getty Photos
cover caption
toggle caption
Joe Buglewicz/Getty Photos
The ladies’s bracket
Earlier than final season, the UConn Huskies had seemingly misplaced their grip on ladies’s school basketball. After successful 4 titles in a row from 2013 to 2016, the Huskies took a backseat as different applications had their time within the solar. Final 12 months, underneath the management of level guard Paige Bueckers, UConn reclaimed the trophy.
Now, with ahead Sarah Robust and guard Azzi Fudd within the driver’s seat(s), they’re an early favourite to repeat. The Huskies are 34-0 and the main contenders for the highest total seed because of the eleventh undefeated common season in class historical past.
However the 31-1 UCLA Bruins have a declare on the highest spot, too, regardless of their single loss to Texas (who at the moment are ranked No. 3) again in November. Although their largest star, senior middle Lauren Betts, hasn’t fairly lived as much as the sky-high normal she set in her junior 12 months, that hasn’t stopped the Bruins. All however two of their victories this season have been received by double digits. Every week in the past, they beat Iowa, at present ranked No. 7, by 51 factors — not a typo — within the Huge Ten title sport.
Rounding out the highest seeds are more likely to be UConn’s opponents in final 12 months’s title sport, South Carolina, who two years in the past have been the final staff to tug off an undefeated season, and the Texas Longhorns, who’ve persistently been a high participant within the ladies’s sport however have not gotten over the hump to win a title since 1986.
The ladies’s match has traditionally had fewer upsets than the boys’s match. The bottom seed ever to win a title is No. 3, most just lately in 2023 when Louisiana State and their star Angel Reese toppled Caitlin Clark’s Iowa.
