Elite NCAA March Madness 2026: The Gambler’s Dream Returns!
March Madness predictions 2026: Bill Bender's expert NCAA Tournament bracket picks originally appeared on The Sporting News . Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here . It's time for the Big Ten drought to end.
The Big Ten hasn't won a men's basketball national championship since 2000 – a fact I would have deemed impossible when I watched Michigan State beat Florida in 89-76 from a not-so-well-kept college apartment on April 3, 2000. The Big Ten had won five national championships in my lifetime at that point. How old am I now?
It's not important. Michigan – despite an 80-72 loss in the Big Ten tournament to Purdue on Sunday – is the conference's best bet to break that drought in the 2025-26 NCAA Tournament. The Wolverines finished unbeaten on the road in Big Ten play – and that's what I'm leaning on more heading into the one-and-done nature of the NCAA Tournament.
For perspective, I've done NCAA tournament predictions for Sporting News since 2018 and four times my national championship pick did not get out of the first weekend. That included Illinois in 2021 - the last Big Ten team I believed would win the whole thing. The last two seasons, my national championship picks were good enough.
UConn (2024) won the national championship and Duke (2025) made the Final Four. Are there concerns with Michigan? LJ Cason's season-ending injury means less depth at point guard.
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