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Joe LunardiFeb 6, 2026, 02:30 PM ETClose Resident college basketball bracketologist for ESPN Contributor to SportsCenter, ESPN Insider Published first public bracket in 1995Follow on XMultiple Authors
The men’s college basketball season is in high gear with less than six weeks until Selection Sunday.
We update the projected 2026 NCAA tournament field every Tuesday and Friday in Bracketology, but for a comprehensive look across the sport, I’ve sorted every high-major team into tiers within their respective conferences. From Final Four contenders to expected misses and everything in-between, let’s run through the top five leagues in order of their total projected bids in my latest field.
The Big Ten couldn’t be in a better place as we hit the stretch run of the regular season. The “conference of quantity” has added a large measure of high quality, giving it the best chance in a long time to end a 25-year national title drought.
The top of the seed list is dotted with Big Ten names. Five teams on the top three lines, led by Michigan, bring plenty of Final Four potential. The middle of the bracket will feature up to a half-dozen more familiar names, although one or two might have to make their way up from the First Four.
For now, enjoy the nightly slugfests in a league rightly dissed for its March disappearing acts. This season is shaping up a whole lot better than that.
Take a screenshot of this section just to see the words “Nebraska” and “Final Four” together. If it happens, it will give the Cornhuskers their first four NCAA tournament wins in program history and make them the top story of March. (In other words, Michigan and Illinois are more likely to pull it off.)
Michigan State and Purdue could argue for a spot among the Final Four contenders, but recent losses cast some doubt on their ability to play up. Iowa and Wisconsin seem to have the most staying power outside the conference elite.
All three could make it, all three could miss — and, conceivably, all three could be in the First Four in what would be a selection committee nightmare. It says here that all three make it, but after USC and Ohio State sweat it out through Selection Sunday.
Indiana lands this spot thanks to arguably the best week of the season by any potential bubble team. Winning the rivalry game at Purdue was celebratory enough, but a cross-country trek to beat UCLA in double overtime was icing on the cake. A win at USC to complete the L.A. sweep would officially lock up a bid.
Washington’s win at Northwestern makes the Huskies the closest thing to a “best bet” in this group. They are also the only team here with a realistic path to somehow landing in the NCAA conversation.
Oregon and Maryland both belong on the short list of this season’s most disappointing programs. Rutgers and Penn State, sadly, are exactly as expected.
This season’s edition of the SEC is having to settle for “regular good” instead of “unprecedented good.”
The conference still has enough depth to send double-digit teams to the NCAA tournament and might yet produce a national title winner with reigning champion Florida returning to 2024-25 form. But SEC fans expecting the conference to replicate last March’s results — two No. 1 seeds, two No. 2 seeds, a 3-seed and a 4-seed — are going to be disappointed.
What’s missing from a year ago is the staggering number of elite SEC teams coupled with greater depth across the sport. Last season was a perfect setup: The SEC was not only great, but the ACC and Big East were down. There were also no bid stealers, creating more openings. This season is more balanced between high-major conferences, which means the SEC might produce only the second- or third-most tournament teams.
Vanderbilt and Alabama were in this tier the last time we ranked the SEC, and Florida was nowhere to be found. Since then, the Gators have beaten both to take control of the conference race. If they win Saturday at Texas A&M, the defending champs should have a clear path to a 2-seed.
Vanderbilt Commodores Tennessee Volunteers Alabama Crimson Tide Arkansas Razorbacks Kentucky Wildcats Auburn Tigers Georgia Bulldogs
The bloom is off the rose for Vanderbilt; Alabama and Kentucky remain confounding in different ways; Arkansas is the opposite of a sleeper; and Georgia continues to do just enough to stay ahead of the bubble — all of which leaves Tennessee as the current best of this bunch. But it’s hard to call the Vols a “sleeper” after back-to-back Elite Eights.
Now that the Aggies have reluctantly dropped out of first place, losing 100-97 at Alabama, we can call them the SEC sleeper. Bucky Ball has been a huge hit in College Station, and Texas A&M is in position to blow past last season’s win total.
The Tigers’ NET ranking (57) suggests hope, but their record (2-7 SEC, 1-5 Quadrant 1) is a disaster. It’s going to be a long, slow march to an unpleasant finish line.
Oklahoma is the unfortunate story here. The Sooners have talent, and they have had opportunities, but the combination of a 1-9 SEC record and 1-8 Quadrant 1 record pretty much puts the kibosh on any expectations.
In a reversal of fortune, the ACC might be deeper than it is great. It’s not quite Duke and a cast of thousands, but it’s starting to look that way with the Blue Devils in position to run away with the regular-season standings.
On paper, Clemson and Virginia are within striking distance of first-place Duke, but they have to play the Blue Devils at Cameron Indoor. And even if Jon Scheyer’s group splits its series with North Carolina, it’s hard to see a way the Blue Devils don’t win the league and an NCAA tournament No. 1 seed.
The real story in the ACC however is its very deep middle. Expect double (or more!) the number of NCAA bids from a year ago — and league history suggests that will result in a surprise Sweet 16 team or two.
The Blue Devils are in line for what would be a 16th No. 1 seed in school history, a truly remarkable total. It’s been more than a decade since their last national championship, though, so it’s fair to note they’re due.
Virginia Cavaliers Louisville Cardinals North Carolina Tar Heels Clemson Tigers NC State Wolfpack SMU Mustangs
The rest of this season could break one of two ways for these teams: with a run to the tournament or a slump to prevent that. The one we’re watching closely is Virginia Tech. The Hokies are hanging their hat on a triple-overtime win over Virginia but will need a little more than that between now and Selection Sunday.
Mark Madsen is doing quite a job in Berkeley. Outside of the blowout losses to Louisville and Virginia, Cal has been in every game. A 1-point win at Miami at the end of January might have been a turning point for a program that hasn’t been to the NCAA tournament in a decade.
Could have, would have, should have. These three ACC brand names are a combined 8-19 in conference play. Obviously, that’s not good enough to meet program expectations — or make the tournament.
There might be more ACC schools looking for coaches than NFL teams looking for offensive coordinators. Only first-year Luke Loucks at Florida State seems safe among this group.
Saturday: Duke at North Carolina (6:30 p.m.) Feb. 14: Clemson at Duke (noon) Feb. 17: North Carolina at NC State (7 p.m.) Feb. 28: Virginia at Duke (noon) March 7: Virginia Tech at Virginia (12:30 p.m.)
Whether it’s geography or merely happenstance, it seems harder to win on the road in the Big 12 than perhaps any other conference. BYU learned that this week at Oklahoma State, joining other road upset victims this season in Iowa State (at Cincinnati) and Kansas (at West Virginia).
These upsets would usually have bunched the conference standings in years past, but that’s simply not the case in 2025-26. Instead, the Big 12 is unusually bifurcated, with seven clear NCAA tourney teams followed by a wide range of longshots.
Unspoken are a pair of underachievers, Baylor and Cincinnati, whose shortcomings have greatly impacted the conference’s top-to-bottom strength. UCF has done its best to make up the difference, but it’s going to take more than the Knights for the Big 12 to close the distance to the ACC, Big Ten and SEC.
The good news for Big 12 fans is that the conference has the most true contenders for a national championship.
This is why top-four seeds from the same conference are placed in separate regions: So they don’t knock each other out of a chance at the Final Four.
It’s not hard to imagine the Big 12 sending multiple teams to Indianapolis, perhaps even challenging what the Big East did in the first year of a 64-team field, when it sent three teams to the final weekend in 1985 — powerhouses Georgetown and St. John’s, and little sibling Villanova. Naturally, the Wildcats became the Cinderella champion. Something similar could happen for the Big 12 in 2026.
The “likelies” are a very short list, because so many of the league’s teams are better than that. Which isn’t to say BYU or Texas Tech couldn’t make a serious run, as both have the star power to do so.
Baylor is the most likely of this bunch to make it, but the conference’s coattails could be long enough to propel one or two more into the bracket.
The Knights are less of a sleeper team following major wins over Kansas and Texas Tech. What they need to ascend, though, is a breakthrough road victory over a team in the top half of the conference.
Sad to say, both of these programs might need an all-time surge to save their season, and their coaches. Not much has gone right for either in spite of high expectations — especially at Cincinnati — and the two teams are a combined 3-16 in Quadrant 1 games to date.
Kansas State considered itself no worse than a bubble team yet is fighting to avoid the conference basement. Utah is in the conversation for worst power-conference team in the country, sitting winless in Quadrant 1 games (0-8) and just 2-11 against the top two quadrants combined.