The Men’s NCAA Basketball Tournament starts March 15, with 68 participating teams. Thirty-one teams will automatically qualify for the NCAA Tournament by winning their respective conferences, while the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee will choose the other 37 teams.
While the usual suspects — Duke, Michigan State, North Carolina, Michigan, and Arizona — are virtual locks to make the NCAA Tournament and contenders to win the national championship, some of college basketball's blue bloods are in danger of missing the tournament altogether.
Kentucky was a preseason AP top-10 team, but the injury bug hit the Wildcats hard, leading to a shaky 5-4 start. While Kentucky stabilized its season with a convincing win against Indiana, the Wildcats struggled in a 15-point loss against Alabama on the road, bringing long-term concerns about the Wildcats back into the national purview.
Indiana's season has developed the opposite trajectory of Kentucky's, starting the season 7-0 before losing three of its next four games against much better opposition. The Hoosiers are trending upward, with three straight wins, including a comfortable 90-80 win against conference foe Washington, but there are still too many games left to assert Indiana as a surefire NCAA Tournament team.
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Odds to Make the 2026 Men's NCAA Basketball Tournament
Seton Hall, TCU, and SMU are the bubble teams with the strongest resumes and are widely regarded as likely NCAA Tournament teams at this point in the season.
Creighton (started 5-5), San Diego State (started 3-3), and Kentucky (started 5-4) are all slow starters that have recently played themselves into more solid positioning.
Indiana, Wisconsin, and Texas A&M are all on the fence (between 45-50% odds) to make the NCAA Tournament, but all three will have ample opportunities throughout conference play in the Big Ten and SEC to prove whether they are worthy of NCAA Tournament bids.
The first two rounds of the 2026 NCAA Tournament will be played at various sites across the country, starting with Dayton for the First Four (March 17-18). First round games (March 19-22) will be played in Buffalo, Greenville, Oklahoma City, Portland, Tampa, Philadelphia, San Diego, and St. Louis.
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