We will be going round by round predicting who will advance to win the NCAA Tournament. With March Madness now just a few weeks away, brackets and seeing are almost fully complete. We will be starting in the East region where 1-seed Duke hold the number 1 ranked KenPom defense advancing to the Sweet 16 but losing in upset fashion to Alabama. Alabama currently holds the KenPom ranked 3rd offense and have been to numerous Elite 8's in recent years including last seasons run. Alabama has multiple guards who have tons of March Madness experience and we fully expect them to be very tough to beat. If we look at the bottom half of this region, we see Purdue who holds the 2nd ranked offense and was the preseason poll's number 1 team. Purdue has numerous players who have played in the National Title game just a few seasons ago including star guards Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer. Even with a few tough losses on the season the Boilermakers always bounced back to beat teams by 25+ after these duds. We expect Purdue to make it past two other great top 20 offenses in Utah State and Louisville to make it to an Elite 8 matchup with Alabama for a spot in the Final Four. Purdue is both better offensivly and defensively than Alabama and we like them to advance to the Final Four.

East Region

South Region

Moving to the South Region we have 1-seeded UConn who currently hold the 24th KenPom ranked offense and 10th KenPom ranked defense. These are a lot lower numbers than previous title teams that UConn has had giving us concern for them this time around to be upset. Arkansas comes in as a 5-seed and are coming off of a year where they made the Sweet 16 as a 10-seed in John Calipari's first season as head coach. Arkansas holds the 4th KenPom ranked offense currently, a huge improvement from their 64th ranking a season ago. This team is led by two freshman guards which could cause concern for worry but we believe they have enough to make a big run this time around. On the bottom of the bracket we have a very close Texas and Houston matchup with Texas currently holding the KenPom ranked 6th offense. The concern for the Longhorns is on the defensive end where they rank 118th making it difficult to pick them to upset a strong Houston team coming off of a National runner-up season. We have Arkansas getting past Houston to make to the Final four a year after making a big upset run.

Midwest Region

In the Midwest region we have our number 1 team Michigan as the 1-seed getting to the second weekend fairly easily. They have the biggest wins this season including a 40-point blowout win against Gonzaga and double-digit wins against Purdue and Michigan State amongst numerous others. SMU is our current highest likely upset team as they have propelled to the the 9th ranked offense, a lot higher than earlier this season. Unfortunately for SMU they have to play the best team in the second round and their top 2 defense. At the bottom of this region we see Iowa State getting past the first weekend easily. Iowa State has arguably the most talented returners from last season other than Purdue. Iowa State has the 7th KenPom ranked defense and have had huge wins this season including a 23 point win on the road against Purdue. We see a potential one possession kind of game in the Sweet 16 between Iowa State and Florida with Florida advancing to the Elite 8 in a matchup with Michigan. We see the defending champions falling short here against a dominant Michigan team who we have advancing to the Final Four.

West Region

The West region has Arizona as the 1-seed who currently the 8th ranked offense and 3rd defense making them one of those rare teams who are elite both ways. Illinois is found at the bottom of this region with a team full over international stars. Illinois hold the best offense in the nation and have held that consistently for some weeks now. They have huge wins including against Texas Tech and road wins at Purdue and Nebraska making it very difficult to pick against them in this region. We also find BYU and Gonzaga in the West region with both teams having significant injuries making it difficult to pick either to go far come March. NC State is a team to watch for to potentially upset and go on a run due to their tremendous March Madness experience. NC State has multiple players who played in the Elite 8 just a season ago. Despite that we still have Illinois advancing to a showdown against Arizona for a trip to the Final Four. We still think that this Illinois offense is so great that we have to pick them to make to the Final Four for the first time since 2005 where they almost won it all in the National Title game.

Final Four

Moving to the Final Four we have Michigan playing Illinois and Purdue matching up against Arkansas. We see three Big Ten teams representing the conference in a huge year of success and one out of the SEC, a season after the conference set an NCAA Tournament record with 14 teams from the 16-team conference earning bids to March Madness. In our first matchup we have Michigan up against Illinois in a battle between two top 5 offenses. We like to believe Michigan has the advantage here at they also have a top 5 defense ranking 2nd while Illinois ranks 29th. We also are going by the Week 6 AP Poll where the past 21 national champions were all ranked in the top 12 in their respective season's Week 6 AP poll. Michigan was 3rd in that poll while Illinois was outside of the top 12 at 13th. Simply going by this and also Michigan's dominance all year its hard to pick against them advancing to the National Title game. In our second game, we have Purdue up against Arkansas. Purdue would have a major advantage in terms of experience playing in the Final Four as both of Arkansas's leading scorers are freshmen. Purdue is also the better offense and defense in terms of KenPom allowing us to choose them advance to play Michigan for a chance to win it all. This potential National Title game between Purdue and Michigan would be a rematch of a game played between the two teams earlier this season where the Wolverines came into Mackey Arena and were up by as much as 22 defeating them by double-digits. We do see a rematch being much closer but have to give the advantage to Michigan to win it all in 2026.