How to Win Your Bracket Pool (2026 Edition)
Before you begin reading this article, I want to make one thing abundantly clear: I’m not telling you how to fill out the perfect bracket; that’s impossible (insert cliché about the astronomically small odds of this ever happening). Rather, I’m giving you statistically sound, pragmatic advice on how to win your bracket pool between you and your friends (and the spoils that come along with it). If you follow these foolproof steps, you should finish at (or at the very least near) the top:
Step 1: Advance all 1 and 2 seeds to the Sweet 16.
Okay, I know, this is super chalky and people may rag on you for making this move. Furthermore, the odds are heavily against all eight 1 and 2 seeds advancing to the Sweet 16. However, picking which 1 or 2 seed is going to get upset is a fool’s gambit. You put yourself at risk of losing easy points that your opponents will gain. You’re better off taking a couple small gambles in other early round games, and just playing it safe here.
To further drive home my point, consider this – in the last three tournaments, 19 of the 24 teams (79%) on the 1 and 2 seed line advanced to the Sweet 16. If you can essentially lock in 6 correct teams in your predicted Sweet 16, you should do it.
Step 2: Advance all 3 & 4 seeds to the second round.
The same chalkiness mentioned in step 1 definitely applies here as well, but the same logic applies as well. The difference here is that a lower seed upset over a 3 or 4 in the second round is much more likely in comparison to a similar 1 or 2 upset. Thus, auto-advancing the 3 & 4 seeds should only apply to the first round. It’s fun bragging about being the one person who accurately picked the crazy upset, but you know what’s more fun? Bragging about winning your bracket pool.
In a similar fashion to step 1, I really want to drive home this point as well. In the last four tournaments, only one 14 over 3 upset has occurred, and it was a 4-point victory by Oakland over Kentucky in 2024. Similarly, 13 seeds are 2-14 against 4 seeds in that same timeframe. In the modern NIL era, big upsets are going to be fewer and further in between.
Step 3: Use the following statistical data to fill out the rest of your bracket.
(*Note*: The 0% values listed do not imply that the result cannot happen. Rather, the result is extremely unlikely [less than 0.1% likelihood])
In years past, I had developed a predictive model to attempt to project who has the best chance of advancing far into the tournament. I refined the model to further optimize the predictive results, then normalized the projections for each region to create a probability of advancing in any given round for every team in the tournament. I used historic tournament results from games that took place between 2010 to 2017.
As part of an update from 2019, I moved to a model that predicts the exact score of each game. After the projected score is developed, the model turns that into a projected probability of victory, then uses rules of conditional probability to project teams advancing in the tournament. I also updated the training data for the model to include tournament results from games that took place between 2016 and 2025.
East Region
West Region
Midwest Region
South Region
Bonus TL;DR version: Synthesizing the above charts for people who don’t like numbers.
Most Likely First Round Upsets
Going crazy picking a ton of upsets doesn’t do you any good. Instead, I would pick one (or two tops if you’re feeling real wild) from the following options:
Most Likely 12/5 Upset
- (12) Akron over (5) Texas Tech – 24.3%
Most Likely 11/6 Upsets
- (11) VCU over (6) North Carolina – 53.7%
- (11) NC State/Texas over (6) BYU – 40.5%
Toss-Up Games
These are the 7/10 and 8/9 games that could get either way. The goal here is to get 5+ out of 8 correct. I recommend the following strategy:
- (8) Ohio State vs. (9) TCU – Take Ohio State.
- (7) UCLA vs. (10) UCF – Take UCLA.
- (8) Villanova vs. (9) Utah State – Take Utah State.
- (7) Miami (FL) vs. (10) Missouri – Take Miami (FL).
- (8) Georgia vs. (9) Saint Louis – Flip a coin.
- (7) Kentucky vs. (10) Santa Clara – Take Kentucky.
- (8) Clemson vs. (9) Iowa – Take Iowa.
- (7) Saint Mary’s vs. (10) Texas A&M – Take Saint Mary’s.
Best Final Four Picks by Region
EAST
Chalk – (1) Duke
Value Pick – (2) UConn, (3) Michigan State
Dark Horse – (5) St. John’s
WEST
Chalk – (1) Arizona
Value Picks – (2) Purdue
Dark Horse – N/A (no good value)
MIDWEST
Chalk – (1) Michigan
Value Pick – (2) Iowa State, (3) Virginia
Dark Horse – N/A (no good value)
SOUTH
Chalk – (2) Houston, (1) Florida
Value Pick – (3) Illinois
Dark Horse – (5) Vanderbilt
Most Likely Champions
- (1) Michigan (29.8%)
- (1) Arizona (17.6%)
- (1) Duke (16.0%)
- (2) Houston (10.5%)
- (1) Florida (10.2%)
- (2) Purdue (4.7%)
1-3-1 Sports 