2026 NCAA Tournament: Final Four Update
One Cinderella bust, two I didn't see coming, March proving me right about Duke in the most dramatic way possible, and my champion pick is still standing.
Let me start with the scoreboard.
McNeese lost in the first round. My Cinderella pick was home well before midnight.. I called it as my most trusted upset spot in the entire 5/12 slate, and they didn’t make it out of the first weekend. That one stings and I’m not going to dress it up.
But here’s the thing about this tournament, the bracket I submitted before the first games tipped off still has my champion pick alive in the Final Four. And the two teams that actually delivered Cinderella runs this year? One of them was wearing black and gold, and that one is a little personal.
Let’s get into it.
The Miss: McNeese and the Cinderella That Wasn’t
I built the McNeese case out loud and I’m not going to quietly walk it back now. They had tournament experience from last year’s run. They played in a system that knew how to win close games. The Vanderbilt matchup looked complicated enough on paper to create real uncertainty. The Commodores were hot going into the Madness, and I should have road with them.
The 12-seed history is real, and it will be real again next year. The historical rate on 12-seeds beating 5-seeds is not a fluke. This particular matchup just didn’t deliver.
That’s March. You make the case, you own the result, and you move on.
The Two Real Cinderellas: Texas and Iowa
While McNeese was going home early, the bracket was producing two legitimate upset stories. Neither one was on my bracket. Both of them deserved to be.
Texas: From the First Four to the Sweet Sixteen
Texas came into this tournament as an 11-seed that had to win a First Four game just to earn their spot in the bracket. Most teams that start Wednesday night in Dayton are happy to make it to the weekend. Texas made it to the second weekend.
They beat NC State in the First Four, knocked off BYU in the first round, and then took down Gonzaga in the round of 32. That is three wins over three teams with legitimate credentials. The Gonzaga win alone is a result most 3-seeds would be proud of.
They ran out of road against Purdue in the Sweet 16, but a First Four team beating Gonzaga and reaching the Sweet 16 is not a footnote. That is a real run, and the Longhorns earned every bit of it.
Iowa: The One That Got Me
I said in the original preview that I had Iowa losing to Florida in the second round. I said getting to the round of 32 would be a good March outcome and we should call it a win.
Iowa had other ideas.
The Hawkeyes beat Clemson in the first round, which was the pick. Then they beat Florida, the defending national champion, in the second round by one point. One point. A Florida team that was a 1-seed in the South region with a legitimate case to reach the Final Four again. Iowa beat them by one.
The Sweet 16 was against Nebraska, a Big Ten opponent, and Iowa only led that game for a little more than two minutes. Two minutes of a 40-minute basketball game. They found a way.
The Elite 8 was Illinois. Another Big Ten team, another opponent that knew Iowa inside and out. The Hawkeyes lost that one and fell one win short of the Final Four, which would have been their first trip since 1980. Their last Elite 8 appearance before this one was 1987. Thirty-nine years between Elite 8 trips, and they still couldn’t get over the last wall.
I am a lifelong Iowa Hawkeyes fan. I watched every minute of that run while living in Wisconsin and absorbing the full grief of that Illinois loss in a room by myself. It was exactly the kind of March run that reminds you why the tournament is worth watching every single year, and it hurt exactly as much as it should have.
I picked them to lose in the second round. They made the Elite 8. I am not upset about being wrong.
The Big Ten Took Over This Bracket
Michigan is in the Final Four. Illinois is in the Final Four. Iowa made the Elite 8 before losing to one of those Final Four teams. Nebraska was in the Sweet 16.
The Big Ten did not come to play this year. They came to take over. All of the Final Four teams are from power conferences, and the conference that took the most heat all season for being top-heavy is now placing multiple programs in Indianapolis.
For anyone who spent the regular season debating whether the Big Ten was overrated, the bracket has your answer.
The Hits Worth Claiming
St. John’s. I said they were misseeded. I said they and Northern Iowa were two teams that deserved a better stage than the first round. Northern Iowa did not agree, because St. John’s destroyed them by 26 points. Twenty-six. The game that I framed as one of the best first-round matchups in the bracket turned into a statement win by a team I thought was playing better basketball than their seed implied.
They then escaped Kansas by two points in the second round. Which, if you have been following St. John’s basketball this season, is very on-brand for them. Make it dramatic, make it close, find a way.
The misseeding call was right. The outcome was right. I will take it.
Wisconsin, on the other hand, lost in the first round by one point. I called them the most dangerous 5-seed in the bracket. One point. I still think the read was correct. One point is a bounce, a call, or a missed free throw. That result does not change the analysis.
The Misses Worth Owning
Houston was my sleeper pick to push Florida deep in the South region. They lost to Illinois, who has turned out to be the real story of the South bracket. Hard to be too upset about that one since Illinois has beaten some good teams to get to this point.
Michigan State was the other sleeper. Tom Izzo in March is always worth noting and I stand by the logic. They ran into UConn, who turned out to be one of the most dangerous teams in this entire bracket. UConn beat Michigan State, then turned around and knocked out Duke on a buzzer-beater after trailing by 19. That is not a team that accidentally made the Final Four.
McNeese is already in the first section. I’m not revisiting it twice.
The Champion Pick Is Still Alive. The Bracket Pool Is Interesting.
I picked Michigan to win the national championship. Michigan is in the Final Four. I am going to let that sentence sit for a moment before I say anything else.
The argument I made in the original preview was simple: Michigan had the best collective starting five in the country. Not the most individual lottery picks. The best unit. The best team. That read has held up through the first four rounds.
The argument against Duke was also simple. NBA talent does not guarantee March outcomes. Zion’s Duke team lost in the second weekend. Nine future NBA players did not get Kentucky past the Final Four in 2015. I cited the history and I meant it.
Duke is not in the Final Four. UConn beat them 73-72 on a last-second three-pointer. Duke was up 19 points at one point in that game. They lost by one. On a buzzer-beater. I do not know how to write that sentence without laughing and shaking my head at the same time.
The argument against Duke just got proven right in real time, in the most March way possible. Zion’s team lost in the second weekend. Nine future NBA players couldn’t get Kentucky out of the Final Four in 2015. And now a Duke team loaded with lottery picks blew a 19-point lead and lost on a buzzer-beater to UConn. The history I cited was not an accident. It was a pattern. March just ran the pattern again. Michigan plays UConn now. The best collective unit against a team that just proved it has no quit in it whatsoever. I made my call before any of this started and I am not changing it now.
One more thing worth mentioning, since transparency is the whole deal at JPM Picks. I was sitting in fourth place out of 16 in the JPM Picks bracket pool going into tonight. The three people ahead of me all had Duke winning the national championship. Duke just lost. I am not going to make any promises about where the leaderboard lands because I genuinely do not know the exact math, but the three people I needed to pass were all riding a horse that just got knocked out on a buzzer-beater. Michigan winning the title gives me the best possible outcome in this pool. We are going to find out.
We’ll know how this ends in a few days.
The JPM Take
McNeese busted early. Texas went from the First Four to the Sweet 16 and nobody is going to forget that run. Iowa made the Elite 8 for the first time since 1987, lost to Illinois by 12, and still made this the most memorable Hawkeyes March in nearly four decades. The Big Ten delivered. St. John’s was exactly as dangerous as I thought they were.
Michigan is still standing. Duke is not. The Final Four is Michigan, Illinois, Arizona, and UConn.
That is about as good as a bracket preview can age in this format.
The process was right more than it was wrong. The Cinderella pick missed. The champion pick is alive. The case I made against Duke just got validated by a UConn team that erased a 19-point deficit and won on a buzzer-beater. And somewhere in Indianapolis in a few days, we are going to find out if Michigan can do what I said they would do back when this whole thing started.
I have Michigan. That has not changed.
This is JPM Picks. Just Paper Money, for entertainment and educational purposes only. Not financial advice. Not gambling advice. Always bet responsibly and never risk money you cannot afford to lose.
