5:06 pm CT
JR Radcliffe
Central Florida is in the field as the No. 10 seed, playing No. 7 UCLA on Friday in Philadelphia. UCF includes second-team All-Conference pick Themus Fulks, a standout for UW-Milwaukee last year. Jamichael Stillwell, a double-double force of nature for UWM last year, is also on UCF.
5:04 pm CT
JR Radcliffe
Northern Iowa, a team with three starters from Wisconsin, will have the No. 12 seed and face No. 5 St. John’s on Friday in San Diego. The Panthers have Wauwatosa East’s Leon Bond, Max Weisbrod of DeForest and Will Hornseth of De Pere in the starting five for the Missouri Valley champ.
5:02 pm CT
JR Radcliffe
The East Region top-seed and No. 1 overall seed is Duke, with a 32-2 record and superstar freshman Cameron Boozer. They play Siena, a team coached by former Syracuse star Gerry McNamara.
4:58 pm CT
JR Radcliffe
I can already see the narrative forming with Miami (Ohio) projected as a “last four in” while teams like Auburn (and naturally supportive ex-coach Bruce Pearl, who has said he believes Auburn would deserve a spot over Miami) are “first four out.” There will be conversation! Including the retort that Miami tried to schedule tougher teams, including emails to Wisconsin and Marquette.
But also … a team wins its first 31 games and has to open the tournament in Dayton? Even if that’s a home-state, that feels kind of unfair too!
3:52 pm CT
JR Radcliffe
That gets going at 5 p.m. on CBS (Channel 58 in Milwaukee). We’ve got a little over an hour before the bracket reveal begins.
Then the Oscars begin at 6 p.m. on ABC. What a night!
3:40 pm CT
JR Radcliffe
The Wisconsin men aren’t the only Wisconsin team making an NCAA Tournament appearance this March.
The UW-Green Bay women, champions of the Horizon League, will learn their postseason destiny after the men’s selection show.
USA Today’s women’s bracketologyhas UW-Green Bay going to Morgantown, West Virginia, as a No. 13 seed to face No. 4 West Virginia (a team that features former University of Wisconsin player Carter McCray). The winner would get either No. 5 Kentucky or one of the No. 12 seeds, Nebraska or Virginia.
CBSputs Green Bay on the 13 line as well, facing No. 4 Minnesota in Minneapolis. One of Minnesota’s top players, Grace Grocholski, played at Kettle Moraine High School, and coach Dawn Plitzuweit is from West Bend (and she also coached at West Virginia, as a matter of happenstance).
Charlie Creme of ESPN, who’s been doing women’s bracketology for years, also has Wisconsin as a No. 13 facing West Virginia, with the winner getting Kentucky or Murray State.
3:33 pm CT
JR Radcliffe
For those still paying attention to the Big Ten Tournament, the Boilermakers and Wolverines played a strong first half, locked up at 38 at halftime in Chicago. Both of those teams are headed to top-three seeds, most likely, so there’s little bearing on the bracketing process, but we’ll see if Michigan closes the regular season with just two losses (one to Wisconsin).
South Florida has a narrow lead over Wichita State coming out of halftime in the American Athletic Conference final, the last tournament game that will provide us with an autobid team who isn’t already safely in the dance. South Florida assistant coach Derek Rongstad played high-school basketball at Middleton.
2:38 pm CT
JR Radcliffe
With Yale’s surprising overtime loss to Penn in the Ivy League final, we’re down a potential 12th seed and matchup for the Badgers in the first round. Penn is going to wind up in the 14 range.
The latest Joe Lunardi bracket projections at ESPN this afternoon reflect this, where the Badgers are still a No. 5 seed but now paired with McNeese.
McNeese (28-5) won a first-round game last year under coach Will Wade, who’s now head coach at NC State. The Cowboys repeated as Southland champs regardless, led by 17.5 points per game from Larry Johnson, just a freshman who was named first-team All-Conference and the league’s Freshman of the Year.
Lunardi has the winner of Wisconsin-McNeese meeting either No. 4 Vanderbilt, which just lost the SEC Tournament final to Arkansas, or No. 13 Hofstra.
CBS, by the way, updated their projection this morning and upgraded Wisconsin to a 5 seed, making that a pretty unanimous seeding for the Badgers. They draw No. 12 Akron, the team that is led by Tavari Johnson (20.3 points per game, and no relation that we know of to the aforementioned Larry Johnson). He and Amani Lyles are both first-team All Conference in the MAC, the league where Miami of Ohio went undefeated.
Akron benefited when Miami was upset in the first round of the MAC Tournament, going on to defeat Toledo for the league title. Former Ohio State players Evan Mahaffey and Bowen Hardman both see action for the Zips.
11:11 am CT
JR Radcliffe
Wisconsin’s 24-10 record this year features a number of high-profile wins, including road victories at Michigan, Illinois and Purdue, plus a home win over Michigan State.
They do have a few puzzling losses, as well.
Here’s a look at how the teams on the 2025-26 schedule are faring in the latest bracketology released by Joe Lunardi of ESPN.
10:33 am CT
JR Radcliffe
Logically, it makes sense for a Wisconsin team that’s managing a couple injuries and thus relying on a short rotation. Getting that extra day off Sunday might not be a good thing, right?
Though UW took top-seed Michigan to the wire on Saturday, the Wolverines got the last laugh on a late basket by Big Ten Player of the Year Yaxel Lendeborg. Now they get to avoid playing a basketball game that ends just before the brackets get unveiled, and potentially less than four days before tip-off in the biggest game of the year.
Michigan met Wisconsin in last year’s Big Ten title game and Wisconsin indeed had to play right away on Thursday, traveling to Denver to face Montana. The Badgers then fell in the second round to BYU. Michigan, seeded fifth, broke through to the Sweet 16 before falling to Auburn.
How have Big Ten finalists fared over recent years? Here’s a look, with their seed in the NCAA Tournament. As you can see there are examples where those teams do fizzle out early, but far more where they reach their potential or better.
9:50 am CT
JR Radcliffe
These are the eight possible destinations for the Badgers in this 2026 tournament. They’ll be seeded too highly to play in Dayton early in the week, but there aren’t any venues that are close to Wisconsin.
St. Louis, Missouri.This is the only location this year even remotely close to Madison, with a drive of less than six hours. Bronson Koenig’s buzzer-beater in 2016 came in St. Louis at the Scottrade Center, which today is known as the Enterprise Center (site in 2026).
Buffalo, New York. Speaking of Koenig, he scored 28 points in a first-round win over Virginia Tech in 2017 at KeyBank Center, though the game everyone remembers from that tourney run came next, when Nigel Hayes hit a late layup to lift UW past defending champion at No. 1 seed Villanova, 65-62. The Wildcats came back and won the title the next year, though.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Badgers also played here in 2016, though the XFinity Mobile Arena was known as the Wells Fargo Center at the time. It’s where UW lost to Notre Dame in the Sweet 16.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.The Badgers last played here in 2005, winning their first two games over Northern Iowa and Bucknell en route to the Elite Eight. Games are at the Paycom Center, known as the Ford Center when UW played there in 2005.
San Diego, California.The Badgers have never played NCAA games at Viejas Arena, but they do have memorable experiences in Anaheim and Los Angeles in back-to-back seasons 2014 and 2015, qualifying for the Final Four both times out of the West. The 2019 first-round loss to Oregon in San Jose was less glamorous.
9:33 am CT
JR Radcliffe
If you want a viewing guide to check out potential Wisconsin foes in the first round, there are a couple Sunday games that might be of interest.
At 11 a.m., we have the Ivy League championship between Penn and Yale. Big Ten fans will recognize Penn’s coach, former Iowa leader Fran McCaffery in his first year at the Ivy League program. But Yale has been seen as a potential NCAA Tournament giant-killer all season, and the Bulldogs will be favored to win the league’s auto bid.
The latest USA Today bracket projection has Wisconsin as a No. 5 seed meeting Yale in the first round. Yale’s Nick Townsend is a lethal 3-point shooter (48%) and scores 16.4 points per game.
While those two meet on ESPN2, Dayton and VCU meet for the Atlantic 10 championship on CBS.
Dayton would be stealing a bid from another team with a win. Madison East’s Keonte Jones has been one of the starters for the Flyers, a team that could also wind up in that 11-12 seed range with a victory. Javon Bennett scores 16.3 points per game to lead Dayton.
At 1:15 p.m. CT on ESPN, South Florida plays Wichita State for the American Conference title. South Florida projects as an 11 seed, so a possible Wisconsin foe. South Florida’s Xavier Brown, who’s out for the season with an injury, played on the James Madison team that upset the Badgers two NCAA Tournaments ago.
Wisconsin fans may also naturally want to plug into the 1:30 p.m. CT Big Ten title game on CBS, when Michigan (the team that narrowly ousted UW yesterday) meets Purdue.
8:40 am CT
Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis is hosting the Final Four and title game. It’s the fourth time the stadium and ninth time the city of Indianapolis is the host of the Final Four.
Saturday, April 4, and Monday, April 6
8:26 am CT
JR Radcliffe
The UW-Green Bay women have a roster loaded with Wisconsinites (per usual), and though the UW men have far fewer high-school alumni from the Badger State, the team does have Andrew Rohde, Will Garlock, Isaac Gard and Zach Kinziger. But what about players from the state who will be contributing in the NCAA Tournament for other schools? Here’s a sampling of some of the biggest names:
She’s started 33 of 34 games this year for the No. 1-ranked and undefeated Huskies, with 7.5 points per game and a team-leading 4.8 assists per contest. She also earned a spot on the All-Defense team in the Big East, in addition to first-team All-Conference.
The honorable-mention All-Conference pick in the Athletic Coast Conference has had a strong senior year, scoring 14.0 points per game with 3.6 rebounds and 2.8 assists for a Tar Heels team that finished among the top four in the league. He hit a memorable buzzer-beater earlier this year to beat Duke, and he’ll be needed with star freshman Caleb Wilson lost for the season with an injury.
A second-team All-Conference pick in the Big 12, the junior has started every game this year for the Cyclones, scoring 16.9 points per game and hitting 49.6% of his 3-pointers to lead the nation (127 of 256 through the regular season). He now owns the ISU single-season record for 3-pointers made in a season.
8:20 am CT
The NCAA tournament heads to the regional round:
Thursday, March 26 and Saturday, March 28
Friday, March 27 and Sunday, March 29
8:03 am CT
JR Radcliffe
If the latest round of bracket projections indeed come to fruition and Wisconsin lands as a No. 5 seed, it would mark the first Wisconsin held that seed since, well, two years ago.
That’s a bad memory for UW fans, a first-round upset at the hands of No. 12 James Madison in a particularly ugly 72-61 setback. What about the other times? It’s not a history for the faint of heart.
8:00 am CT
First- and second-round games are at eight sites:
Thursday, March 19 and Saturday, March 21
Friday, March 20 and Sunday, March 22
7:52 am CT
JR Radcliffe
Joe Lunardi, ESPN’s famed “bracketologist,” was burning the midnight oil, producing a fresh NCAA men’s bracket projection at 1:15 a.m. CT March 15.
His latest offers the most optimistic view of Wisconsin yet, a No. 5 seed playing in Portland against No. 12 seed High Point in Portland, with the winner potentially getting the No. 4-seeded Alabama (or No. 13 North Dakota State). There would be some Wisconsin-intrigue in a battle with Alabama, a team coached by Wisconsinite Nate Oats and featuring two freshmen from the state on the roster, including SEC all-freshman pick Amari Allen of Ashwaubenon.
That would put Wisconsin on the same seed line as Big East champion St. John’s, SEC finalist Arkansas and another SEC squad, Texas Tech. It’s quite the ascent from where Wisconsin was a few weeks ago.
Joe Rexrode of The Athletic also posted a Sunday morning bracket update that slides UW up to No. 5. Similarly, this layout also presents a potential battle with Alabama in the second round, but other details have changed. The game would be in Tampa against No. 12 Akron, and Alabama’s opponent is No. 13 Utah Valley. The other No. 5 seeds are the same.
A final round from Fox Sports also has Wisconsin at No. 5, playing McNeese in the first round.
The last CBS projection came the morning of March 14 and still has Wisconsin has a No. 6, facing either No. 11 Santa Clara or No. 11 SMU in the first round based on their First Four matchup. No. 3 Vanderbilt or No. 14 Wright State would await in the second round.
7:30 am CT
The First Four games of the NCAA Tournament are two games between the lowest-ranked teams in the field that will be 16 seeds and two games between the four lowest-seeded at-large teams.
Tuesday, March 17 and Wednesday, March 18
7:00 am CT
Tickets are on sale for all of the March Madness sites in 2026. Each first- and second-round site is sold by session. Three sessions make up each first- and second-round site.
The Sweet 16 games are sold separately from the Elite 8 games at each location. Final Four and national championship game packages are sold separately as well.
6:30 am CT
March Madness begins on Tuesday, March 17, with the start of the First Four games. The start of the first round begins on Thursday, March 19.
6:15 am CT
Selection Sunday, when the field of 68 is revealed, is scheduled for 5 p.m. Central time on Sunday, March 15. Teams will find out their seeds and where they’ll open the tournament.
Selection Sunday is broadcast on CBS and streams on Paramount+.
6:05 am CT
Leave a comment