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 Event title sport.
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Jacob Kupferman/Getty Photographs
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 will likely be launched.
The 32-2 Duke Blue Devils, contemporary off a 74-70 win within the ACC Event 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 will likely 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 heart Patrick Ngongba) have not slowed the Blue Devils down. They’re going to possible be the highest total seed with ambitions of creating the varsity’s nineteenth all-time Remaining 4 look.
There are two different faculties with a secure declare for a No. 1 seed: Arizona, who’re additionally 32-2, and Michigan, who had been 31-2 going into Sunday’s Massive Ten title sport towards Purdue.
That leaves the query of which staff will earn the ultimate prime spot. Contenders embrace Houston, UConn and Florida, the defending nationwide champions.
One other large 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 finest 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 greatest thrills of this season has been the unusually proficient freshman class. That’ll proceed within the match as these gamers arrive on the greatest stage of their younger careers to this point.
Forwards AJ Dybantsa of BYU and Duke’s Cameron Boozer (certainly one of two fraternal twin sons of NBA star Carlos Boozer, each of whom are taking part in 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 season’s NBA draft.
Kansas and BYU usually tend to be longer photographs within the 4- to 6-seed vary.
UConn ahead Sarah Sturdy (#21) and guard Azzi Fudd (#35) are two of the very best gamers in ladies’s school basketball this season. The Huskies are undefeated going into the NCAA match.
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Joe Buglewicz/Getty Photographs
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 yr, underneath the management of level guard Paige Bueckers, UConn reclaimed the trophy.
Now, with ahead Sarah Sturdy 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 are actually ranked No. 3) again in November. Although their greatest star, senior heart Lauren Betts, hasn’t fairly lived as much as the sky-high normal she set in her junior yr, that hasn’t stopped the Bruins. All however two of their victories this season had been gained by double digits. Per week in the past, they beat Iowa, presently ranked No. 7, by 51 factors — not a typo — within the Massive Ten title sport.
Rounding out the highest seeds are more likely to be UConn’s opponents in final yr’s title sport, South Carolina, who two years in the past had been the final staff to drag off an undefeated season, and the Texas Longhorns, who’ve constantly been a prime 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 not too long ago in 2023 when Louisiana State and their star Angel Reese toppled Caitlin Clark’s Iowa.
