🏀 How to Fill Out March Madness Bracket 2026: Our Expert Tips & NCAA Tournament Advice

There's no perfect science when looking at how to fill out March Madness brackets, but there are several pieces of advice and tips to follow when filling out your March Madness bracket for the NCAA Tournament, which gets underway today.

Some may watch as many college basketball games as possible to help them attempt to put together the first-ever perfect bracket, just to have it spoiled immediately. Others make their picks based on team names and colors - and end up doing better than some of the most diehard basketball fans.

We're not content relying on luck to fill out our March Madness bracket, though. Between looking at the latest March Madness odds and the history of the tournament since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985, there are several data points to consider when putting together your bracket. If you're looking for last-minute advice, look no further.

🔵 Don't feel shame in backing 'blue bloods' to win it all

Although I'm sure nothing feels better than picking a non-No. 1 seed or "blue blood" to win the NCAA Tournament and actually having it happen, that's just not good business when it comes to chasing the perfect bracket.

In the 40 NCAA Tournaments that have taken place since 1985, No. 1 seeds make up 65% of the March Madness champions. Expand that to teams seeded No. 1 through No. 3, and that group has taken home 35 of the tournament titles.

That means just 12.5% of the time a team seeded No. 4 through No. 8 has won it all - no team seeded No. 9 or worse has ever cut down the nets.

• "Blue blood" programs are Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, UCLA, Indiana, and North Carolina, with "new bloods" being Michigan, UConn, Villanova, and Michigan State
• Non-No. 1 seeds have won March Madness just 35% of the time
• Teams seeded lower than No. 4 have won the NCAA Tournament only 7.5% of the time, and all three of those teams fall under the Blue Blood program umbrella (UConn, Kansas, Villanova)
• Of the 14 teams that weren't a No. 1 seed to win March Madness, 10 of them are a "blue blood" or "new blood" - the four that aren't are still historically prominent programs (Louisville, Arizona, Syracuse, Florida)
• UConn and UNLV remain the only programs not in a high-major conference to win March Madness (ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, SEC). UNLV was a No. 1 seed in 1990 under legendary coach Jerry Tarkanian, and UConn was temporarily in the AAC during its 2014 run before returning to the Big East
• Since 2008, the ACC, Big East, and Big 12 have accounted for 14 of the 17 NCAA Tournament champs. Florida (SEC), Kentucky (SEC), and UConn (formerly AAC) were the only champs not to come from those three conferences

🏆 All-time record for each seed in the NCAA Tournament

🎲 Don't gamble too often on upsets, but make sure to have a few

The fun of March Madness, especially the opening round, is how non-stop the craziness truly is ... hence the name. But while hitting on an upset to flex to your friends is one of the best feelings as a sports fan, you can't go overboard with calling upsets if you hope to have the best bracket when it's all said and done on April 7.

Being the person to call UMBC taking down Virginia in 2018 or Fairleigh Dickinson knocking off Purdue in 2023 is something you can brag about for the rest of your life. However, it's bad process to pick a No. 16 over a No. 1. (Don't let that stop you if you care not for having the best bracket but rather the biggest bragging rights until next year.)

Instead, target teams that may be seeded too high compared to where KenPom rates them and have a difficult matchup against a talented mid-major program. Seeding is important when it comes to first-round upsets: while picking a No. 16, No. 15, or No. 14 to win is risky, it's almost silly not to pick at least one No. 13, No. 12, No. 11, and two No. 9's to pull off upsets.

• On average, 32.5% of NCAA Tournaments have a No. 15 or No. 16 seed pull off a first-round upset
• There are more than five teams on average seeded between No. 10 and No. 13 that win on the first two days of the NCAA Tournament
• Teams seeded between No. 10 and No. 13 have combined for 214 wins in the first round since 1985 (5.35 wins per year), and that number jumps to 5.9 if you include No. 14 seeds
• On average, at least one No. 14 seed has pulled off an upset in 57% of NCAA Tournaments
• The No. 9 vs. No. 8 matchup is nearly a complete toss-up. In fact, No. 9 seeds have the better record at 83-77. Using a metric like EvanMiya can help you figure out which to back

📊 Be strategic with your upset picks

There are definitely upset picks you're going to want to make, both because having a chalk bracket is boring and because history tells us they're going to happen, especially in the first round. But how far should your Cinderella picks really be going in the NCAA Tournament?

In 40 years, no team seeded worse than No. 11 has made the Final Four, and just three teams seeded between No. 12 and No. 16 have made an Elite Eight run. However, there are certain seeds that have a history of pushing past the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament because of the layout of the bracket, along with mid-majors being underseeded and high-majors being overseeded at times.

👠 How far do Cinderellas advance in March Madness?

• No. 11 seeds are historically the best to target; on average, one reaches the Sweet 16 in 67.5% of NCAA Tournaments, the Elite Eight in 25% of tournaments, and the Final Four in 15.% of them
• On average, 1.85 teams seeded between No. 10 and No. 12 reach the Sweet 16 - those are your best targets to be a Cinderella every March
• The No. 10 and No. 11 seeds have been the best bet for pushing to the Elite Eight, as well. On average, at least one makes it in 47.5% of NCAA Tournaments
• There's a major dropoff with teams seeded between No. 13 and No. 16 making a Sweet 16 run, with a team seeded that low reaching the third round in just 30% of tournaments
• Teams seeded between No. 12 and No. 16 have never made the Final Four and have made the Elite Eight in only 7.5% of NCAA Tournaments
• No. 8 and No. 9 seeds almost always have to play a No. 1 seed in the second round, which is why, on average, they've reached the Sweet 16 in just 60% of NCAA Tournaments

🍀 Which NCAA Tournament seeds make the Final Four most often?

By the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament - the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight - Cinderella runs tend to die.

Rarely does a team seeded lower than No. 5 manage to win two more games to reach the Final Four, which is why the Final Four odds are a good indicator of which teams truly have a chance to reach the final weekend of the tournament.

Only 21 teams seeded No. 6 to No. 11 have ever made a Final Four, and none seeded worse than No. 12 have ever made it that far. Meanwhile, 98 teams seeded No. 1 or No. 2 have made it to the final weekend of the madness, which is why it's more important to focus on picking the best teams to push that far when trying to put together a strong bracket.

• There have been 160 Final Four teams across 40 NCAA Tournaments, and teams seeded No. 6 to No. 16 account for 13.1% of them
• On average, a team seeded No. 6 to No. 16 has made the Final Four in 52.5% of NCAA Tournaments
• Teams seeded No. 3 to No. 5 account for 41 of the 160 Final Four teams (25.6%), and those seeds produce just over one team in the Final Four on average.
• No. 1 and No. 2 seeds make up 61.8% of the teams to make a Final Four, with 2.4 teams seeded that high reaching the Final Four on average
• The average seed of a Final Four team is 2.9, with the vast majority of those teams being a top-two seed

🐺 Which player can carry their team deep in NCAA Tournament? (AKA the Kemba Walker rule)

In almost every example of a team winning the NCAA Tournament while being seeded outside of the top two, the championship-winning program featured legitimate NBA talent and often a college superstar. UConn legend Kemba Walker is the most obvious example of this, but the Huskies have actually pulled the feat off three times.

They aren't alone, either, with a Florida program led by Joakim Noah and Al Horford winning the title as a No. 4 only to repeat as champs the next year as a No. 1 seed. Even No. 8 Villanova in 1985, the lowest seed to ever win it all, had a future top-10 pick in Ed Pinckney leading the way.

• All but one of the teams to win the NCAA Tournament as a No. 3 to No. 8 seed featured at least one future lottery pick
• The 2013-14 UConn Huskies are the only top-two seed without a lottery pick team to win it all, but Shabazz Napier was a consensus first-team All-American and Bob Cousy Award winner and was selected in the first round
• The 2022-23 UConn Huskies are the only non-top two seed to win the title while having a leading scorer who wasn't a first-round pick (Adama Sanogo), but it did have two future lottery picks in Jordan Hawkins and Donovan Clingan
• Florida, Syracuse, Arizona, Michigan, and Kansas all had a player on their championship team selected in the top four of the NBA draft
• Five of the nine teams seeded worse than No. 2 to win March Madness had multiple lottery picks

📅 March Madness key dates

• Selection Sunday: Sunday, March 15 (6 p.m. ET)
• First Four: Tuesday, March 17 & Wednesday, March 18
• First round: Thursday, March 19 & Friday, March 20
• Second round: Saturday, March 21 & Sunday, March 22
• Sweet 16: Thursday, March 26 & Friday, March 27
• Elite Eight: Saturday, March 28 & Sunday, March 29
• Final Four: Saturday, April 4
• National championship game: Monday, April 6