Expert March Madness picks for every CBB tournament game reveal multiple upset predictions

The 2026 CBB Tournament bracket has been revealed and the analytics team at Dimers.com has dropped its complete CBB predictions to guide you through the March Madness tournament, mapping out projected favorites, Cinderellas and winners from the First Four all the way through the National Championship in Indianapolis.

Dimers' college basketball predictions are powered by proprietary machine-learning models that process thousands of data points, from historical stats to real-time game-day updates at both the team and player level, simulating every matchup 10,000 times to deliver a comprehensive outlook for the entire field and give you an edge when it comes to CBB betting.

And this March, betting on CBB just got a whole lot easier with the launch of the Dimers App, where you can unlock a three-day free trial of Dimers Pro, giving you access to every single bet over the first days of the tournament.

Tap the card below to go straight to the App Store and get your three-day free trial today.

Every matchup in the 2026 CBB Division I men's basketball tournament is covered in our bracket, with each contest updated in real time on Dimers' CBB game hub, also available in the Dimers App and powered by Dimers' custom-built data engine, providing clear probabilities for each team to win, including moneyline, point spread, projected score, and total points.

Note: this bracket predates the First Four matchups, so we've simulated those games and slotted the most probable winners directly into the full 64-team bracket.

Our 2026 March Madness CBB Bracket

Below is our full bracket for the tournament, crafted by simulating every game thousands of times with our advanced college basketball model.

The result is a bracket that goes well beyond gut instinct, offering fans and bettors a data-grounded window into how this tournament is likely to unfold according to our simulations.

Dimers'' official 2026 March Madness bracket.

The Bracket's big favorites

No surprise at the top of the model's projections: Duke (32-2), Arizona (32-2), Michigan (31-3), and defending champion Florida (26-7) all earned No. 1 seeds and Dimers' simulations back each of them as strong contenders to advance deep into the tournament, though only one of them leads our best bets to win the March Madness tournament.

Duke enters with a slight betting edge at a 35.7% championship probability and +400 odds, while Michigan, Big 12 winner Arizona, and last year's champion Florida round out the top line, giving the model four legitimate title-game contenders to weigh against each other across thousands of simulated outcomes.

Duke is the No. 1 overall seed after a dominant 32-2 campaign, including a 17-1 mark in ACC play and a signature neutral-court win over fellow No. 1 seed Michigan.

Injuries to key guards for both Duke (Caleb Foster) and Michigan (L.J. Cason) loom as significant variables, but not enough to overturn their respective teams' chances to reach the title game.

Spotlight on CBB upsets, and potential Cinderella teams

While the model affirms many of the expected results, it also surfaces some upset calls worth circling on your bracket, particularly once we get past the opening round games on Thursday and Friday.

Looking ahead to the second round, our model projects No. 5 Vanderbilt to fall to No. 4 Nebraska in the South region, despite the Commodores being favored to reach the Sweet Sixteen, opening up value on Nebraska to punch their ticket to that round at +115 odds and a 53.% probability.

In that same round but in the Midwest region, our model projects No. 5 Texas Tech to beat No. 4 Alabama in a theoretical second-round matchup. At +145 odds and a 49.1% probability for Texas Tech to reach the Sweet Sixteen, but -120 odds on Alabama at the same probability, there's a clear edge on the Red Raiders.

Sticking in the Midwest, another second-round upset our model circles is a potential game between No. 6 Tennessee and No. 3 Virginia, with the former winning en route to a Sweet Sixteen matchup with Iowa State.

If there's a Cinderella team in here, it may be No. 6 Tennessee, as they are the lowest seed to reach the Sweet 16 in our bracket simulations.

Perhaps the model's most intriguing call is in the East Region, where UConn, a two-time champion in three seasons under Dan Hurley, represents a bold upset candidate in a potential Sweet Sixteen matchup with Michigan State, where our model puts the No. 3 Spartans into an Elite Eight showdown with Duke over the Huskies.

Another chalk Final Four?

As the simulations carry teams deeper into the bracket, the projected Final Four tightens around the nation's elite. Dimers' data-driven model backs the top four seeds, Duke, Michigan, Arizona and Florida, each representing their regions in the semifinals.

The model's simulated National Championship points to a showdown between Duke and Michigan, with the Blue Devils led by the projected National Player of the Year, Cameron Boozer, who is averaging 22.5 points, 10.2 rebounds, and 4.2 assists per game while shooting over 56% from the floor, holding a sizable edge to cut down the nets in Indianapolis on April 6.

Why this matters for your CBB Bracket

A solid, data-backed source of tournament predictions can be the deciding factor between a winning and losing bracket, whether you're a newcomer to college basketball or a seasoned bettor. Dimers' framework does more than identify favorites as it quantifies just how vulnerable every team in the field truly is, helping bracket players pinpoint the upsets worth taking a chance on and the chalk picks worth riding through the second weekend.

Access to the Dimers App will be invaluable during the tournament, as you'll have instant predictions for every single game, updating in real time as the bracket unfolds and our model runs its latest simulations, giving you an edge every single day.

With more than 60 games standing between now and a champion, Dimers' 2026 March Madness bracket represents one of the most methodologically rigorous roadmaps available for navigating the tournament. As the opening round games tip off Thursday, the real test begins, measuring just how closely the data aligns with the madness that always defines this time of year.

Dimers and responsible gambling

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