Well friends, we’ve officially reached the point in the sports calendar where football of both the professional and collegiate variety have gone into hibernation, giving us the opportunity to shift our focus entirely to the hardwood. And frankly, there couldn’t be a better time to do so. Not only are we just 34 days away from Selection Sunday, but this past weekend, we saw a pair of our No. 1 seeds — the UConn Huskies and Duke Blue Devils — suffer road losses to conference rivals, seemingly cracking open a door that was beginning to feel as though it was bolted shut.
Make no mistake… Connecticut and Duke, along with Arizona and Michigan, will likely still enter the NCAA Tournament as No. 1 seeds and the betting favorites to cut down the nets at Lucas Oil Stadium on April 6, and behind them, programs like Houston, Iowa State, Illinois, Michigan State and Florida will likely make up the next tier of championship contenders. But what about the tier of contenders below that? And more specifically for today’s exercise, the tier even below that?
The reason that my curiosity has been piqued in regards to the long shots of the 2026 NCAA Tournament is two-fold… First and foremost, we call it March Madness for a reason, right? Every year there emerges a team that survives the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament and receives its casting call to audition for the role of Cinderella. It’s a tale as old as the tournament itself, so why not get ahead of the unpredictability and start trying to identify those teams a month ahead of time?
Second, the Seattle Seahawks are the newly crowned Super Bowl champions, and even though their body of work throughout the 2025 NFL suggests it was certainly not a fluke, Seattle came into the season as a 60-to-1 long shot to win the Super Bowl. So this got me thinking about what long shots could theoretically make some major noise during the Madness and threaten to win the whole damn thing despite having similar odds right now as the Seahawks did back on September 1st?
Well, in the spirit of Seattle’s victory, I’ve managed to identify 7 teams currently with 60-to-1 odds or longer who I believe I’ll be able to talk myself into making a run toward the Final Four when it’s time to fill out brackets in Mid-March.
All odds provided by BetMGM
BYU Cougars (66-to-1) – By way of the Carmelo Anthony Corollary, we simply cannot discount the team that’s being led by the best freshman (and maybe the best player) in the entire country.
Alabama Crimson Tide (66-to-1) – I’m just going to forever and always trust Nate Oats. The Tide made the Elite Eight last year and the Final Four the year prior, so there’s at least a recent track record of sustained NCAA Tournament success here.
St. John’s Red Storm (66-to-1) – Gritty, hard-nosed and talented. This team embodies its head coach, and that should make it very dangerous come March.
Saint Louis Billikens (100-to-1) – You’re gonna have to put me in handcuffs in order to prevent me from penciling Saint Louis into the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament once the bracket is revealed. I don’t even care about the draw, nor do I know what a Billiken is.
Texas Longhorns (250-to-1) – With wins already this season over 4 teams currently in my projected NCAA Tournament field — Alabama, Vanderbilt, Georgia and NC State — the Longhorns have proven they can beat high quality competition. The fact that they’ve already accumulated 9 losses has me concerned that Texas may not even make the Big Dance.
SMU Mustangs (250-to-1) – Shout out to head coach Andy Enfield, who took my alma mater — Florida Gulf Coast University Eagles — to the Sweet 16 as a 15-seed, and went to the Elite Eight in the COVID Tournament in 2021 with USC before its season was stopped short of the Final Four by a then-undefeated Gonzaga Bulldogs team.
Miami OH Redhawks (1000-to-1) – The RedHawks still have yet to lose a game, so it feels absurdly disrespectful to leave them off this list even though they played a comically soft nonconference schedule and have managed to survive 5 games that were decided by 3 points or less.
The Bracket
Bracketology Breakdown
No. 1 Seeds: Arizona Wildcats (West Region), Michigan Wolverines (Midwest Region), Duke Blue Devils (South Region), UConn Huskies (East Region)
Multi-Bid Leagues: ACC (8), Big 12 (7), Big East (3), Big Ten (11), Mountain West (3), SEC (10), WCC (2)
SEC Seeding: Florida (3), Vanderbilt (4), Alabama (5), Arkansas (6), Kentucky (6), Tennessee (7), Auburn (8), Texas A&M (9), Georgia (9), Texas (11)
Bubble Watch
Last 4 Byes: Indiana, USC, UCLA, Miami FL
Last 4 In: San Diego State, Ohio State, New Mexico, Texas
First 4 Out: Santa Clara, Virginia Tech, California, Oklahoma State
Next 4 Out: Mizzou, Seton Hall, TCU, Stanford
10 Biggest Games of the Week
Monday, February 9 – 7 p.m. ET, ESPN – NC State at Louisville
Monday, February 9 – 9 p.m. ET, ESPN – Arizona at Kansas
Tuesday, February 10 – 7 p.m. ET, FS1 – Purdue at Nebraska
Tuesday, February 10 – 7 p.m. ET, SEC Network – Vanderbilt at Auburn
Friday, February 13 – 8 p.m. ET, FOX – Michigan State at Wisconsin
Saturday, February 14 – 12 p.m. ET, ESPN – Clemson at Duke
Saturday, February 14 – 1 p.m. ET, ABC – Kansas at Iowa State
Saturday, February 14 – 3 p.m. ET, ABC – Kentucky at Florida
Saturday, February 14 – 6:30 p.m. ET, ESPN – Texas Tech at Arizona
Saturday, February 14 – 10:30 p.m. ET, ESPN – Gonzaga at Santa Clara
