2026 NCAA Tournament cheat sheet of stats, March Madness history, facts, things to know for your bracket picks

Welcome back to the happiest week of the year in sports. The bracket is set and so much lies ahead of us. What chaos and cacophony will this year’s Big Dance bring?

Over the next few days, we’ll all find out together. That’s a joyous thought.

Before you finalize your bracket picks, though, take a little time here to scroll the buffet of data I’ve once again culled for you. There are all sorts of individual, team, historical and trend-based stats baked into this annual story that, I hope, gets you that much more excited for the first round on Thursday. If it helps bring any more clarity to you as you overthink the process and invariably wreck your bracket, even better.

Clock is ticking for Brackets! Get back in your pools and enter our Bracket Challenge for your chance to win a dream trip to the 2027 Final FourⓇ.

As always, in addition to my own research, some supplementary stats were provided by CBS Sports’ research team (a special thanks to our Nicky Nathanson this year), the NCAA, KenPom.com, ESPN, Elias Sports, Sports Reference and BartTorvik.com.

Once again, with feeling, here are the statistics, facts and history to know before we begin the 2026 NCAA Tournament in earnest. 

• Highest-scoring team: Alabama (91.7 points per game)
• Lowest-scoring team: Northern Iowa (69.9 points per game) 
• Fastest team: Alabama (74.6 possessions per game)
• Slowest team: Northern Iowa (63.4 possessions per game)
• Best free-throw shooting team: Saint Mary’s (81.1%)
• Worst free-throw shooting team: Liberty (66.8%) 
• Best 3-point shooting team: Saint Louis (40.5%)
• Worst 3-point shooting team: Siena (30.4%)
• Most experienced team(s): SMU and Texas (2.74 average seasons)
• Least experienced team: Saint Mary’s (0.74 average seasons) 
• Tallest team: Illinois (average height 80.0 inches)
• Smallest team: Akron (75.9 inches)
• Deepest bench: Gonzaga (42.2% of minutes played)
• Thinnest bench: Texas Tech (19.4%)

Most efficient offenses, adjusted points scored per 100 possessions:

1. Purdue (131.6)
2. Illinois (131.2) 
3. Alabama (129.0)
4. Duke (128.0)

Most efficient defenses, adjusted points allowed per 100 possessions:

1. Michigan (89.0) 
2. Duke (89.1) 
3. Arizona (90.0)
4. Iowa State and Houston (91.4)

Over the years, teams that have won it all have checked a lot of boxes. You can make the stats tell you a lot of things you want to hear. But if you’ve got a pre-tournament top-30 per-possession D and a guard/wing that’s safely projected to be drafted (borderline first round or better), you’ve got a solid shot. Only a handful of teams meet this criteria each year. In the past three years, UConn and Florida easily cleared this bar. Here are the teams in 2026 + their defensive rankings at KenPom.

• Best scorer: BYU‘s AJ Dybantsa (25.3 points per game)
• Best rebounder: Florida’s Rueben Chinyelu (11.5 boards per game)
• Best assist man: Michigan State’s Jeremy Fears Jr. (9.2 dimes per game)
• Best 2-point shooter (min. 80 attempts): Louisville’s Sananda Fru (77.3%)
• Best 3-point shooter: Iowa State’s Milan Momcilovic (49.6%)
• Best foul shooter: UMBC’s DJ Armstrong (92.8%)
• Best thief: Tennessee State’s Aaron Nkrumah (2.8 steals per game)
• Best shot-blocker: Virginia’s Ugonna Onyenso (3.0 swats per game)

87: This is the 87th NCAA Tournament. Thirty-seven programs have won a national title dating to 1939, when Oregon won its only championship. Oregon and Oklahoma are the teams from that first Final Four NOT in this year’s field; Ohio State and Villanova are both back after missing the past three years.

3,770: There have been 3,770 games played in NCAA Tournament history.

0: The Houston Cougars, Purdue Boilermakers, Iowa State Cyclones, Gonzaga Bulldogs and Illinois Fighting Illini are the best-seeded teams in the field with zero national titles.

16: This is Duke’s 16th time to be a No. 1 seed, now one ahead of Kansas for second all time. UNC’s 18 ranks No. 1. 

64: This is Kentucky’s 64th tournament, most of any school in history.

29.2%: The percentage of brackets at CBS Sports that have Duke winning it all. Arizona is second at 21.9%, Michigan is third at 13.7%.

20.2: Duke’s percentage to win the title, according to BartTorvik.com. For the first time since 2022, Houston is NOT the most favored team going into the Dance, per Torvik. The top five for this year: Duke, Michigan (17.9%), Arizona (14.8%), Florida (9.1%), Houston (7%). Florida was also the fourth-most likely team a year ago when it went on to win it all.

1: Only four times has the No. 1 overall seed won the NCAA Tournament since the selection committee began ranking the No. 1 in 2004: Florida (2007), Kentucky (2012), Louisville (2013) and Connecticut (2024). The No. 1 overall seed has also lost in the second round thrice — and the first round once. (UMBC forever.) Duke is this year’s No. 1 overall seed.

16: Duke has 16 wins against teams in the field, the most of all dancers. Kentucky leads the field with 19 games played vs. tournament teams (it went 7-12). There were 12 schools with no wins against 2026 tournament teams going in: Howard, McNeese, Wright State, Kennesaw State, Prairie View A&M, Cal Baptist, Akron, Penn, Queens, Tennessee State, Lehigh and UMBC.

16: Michigan leads the field with 16 victories against top-50 KenPom teams. Duke and Arizona have 15.

6: Every champion since 2004 has been ranked in the top 12 of the Week 6 AP Top 25. Those 12 teams (seeds included) from this season, ranked in order back in Week 6, are: Arizona (1), Michigan (1), Duke (1), Iowa State (2), UConn (2), Purdue (2), Houston (2), Gonzaga (3), Michigan State (3), BYU (6), Louisville (6), Alabama (4).

13: Here’s a tasty one, via Will Warren: A No. 11 seed or worse has won a game in the first eight tip-offs on the opening Thursday of the tournament 13 years in a row. That means at least one of these teams is winning in the first two TV windows: Troy, South Florida, High Point, Siena, McNeese, North Dakota State or Hawaii. Give us at least two!

0: Infamously, no team has lost its first conference tournament game and then won a national title. This year, there are four teams you should be suspicious of: Illinois, Michigan State, Nebraska and Alabama are the 4-seeds or better that went one-and-done in their league tourneys. (Additionally, every national champion since 1985 has made it minimally to the semifinals of their league tournament, if their league staged a tournament the year they won it all.) 

15 of 27: In the past 27 tournaments, 15 national champions won their conference tournament. Since 1985, 18 national champions have won their league tournaments. There is no pattern at play here.

32 and 1: Duke and Arizona have the most wins (32) vs. Division I competition. Miami University, of course, has the fewest (1).

17: Prairie View A&M’s 17 losses are the most in the field. 

36: It’s been 36 years since the Idaho Vandals last made the NCAAs, ending the longest drought among teams in this year’s Dance. Among Power Five teams in the field, the school with the longest drought since its last NCAA Tournament is SMU (2017). 

16-1: It’s Arizona that owns the best neutral-court record entering this tournament at 16-1. (Miami University went 15-1.) 

2/19: Alabama, for the second straight season, faced the fewest Quad 4 teams of all (2). Duke, Michigan and Purdue faced 19 Quad 1 foes, the most of all in the field.

-31.5: Arizona’s line vs. LIU and Michigan’s line vs. Howard, tied for the biggest of the first round. Here’s the lines for every Thursday/Friday game.

5: The number of coaches with top-four seeds who have never made a Final Four as a head coach. Todd Golden and Jon Scheyer got off the list last year. At least one of these guys is doing the same in two weeks, right?     

1. Tommy Lloyd (Arizona)
2. T.J. Otzelberger (Iowa State)
3. Brad Underwood (Illinois)
4. Ryan Odom (Virginia)
5. Fred Hoiberg (Nebraska)

10 for 15: In 10 of the past 15 tournaments, at least one 13-seed has defeated a No. 4. The most popular 13-over-4 pick at CBS Sports’ Bracket Games: Troy over Nebraska (10.6%). 

3 out of 4: No team has lost at least three of its last four games heading into the NCAAs and won the whole thing. The only top-five seed that did it this year: Texas Tech. 

6 or fewer: It took UMBC 33 years to become the first No. 16 seed to win, then only five years after that for Fairleigh Dickinson to etch its name in history. Seven other times a 16-seed has finished a game within six points or fewer but lost. Those results were: 2013 Southern vs. Gonzaga (64-58); 1996 Western Carolina vs. Purdue (73-71); 1990 Murray State vs. Michigan State (75-71 in OT); 1989 McNeese State vs. Illinois (77-71); 1989 East Tennessee State vs. Oklahoma (72-71); 1989 Princeton vs. Georgetown (50-49); and 1985 Fairleigh Dickinson vs. Michigan (59-55). 

5 or lower: This is a 🚨🚨🚨 for your bracket picks: EVERY NCAA Tournament since 2013 until last year had a No. 5 seed or lower reach the Final Four. Last year I wrote, “Seems nearly impossible this year … yet it’s going to happen again, I guess!” But it didn’t. So … back to some unpredictability. Please, bracket gods, let it happen.

2025, 2024, 2016, 2009, 2008: The five most recent instances all four 1-seeds made the Elite Eight. 

1985: There has been one NCAA Tournament where three teams from the same conference ended up in the Final Four: the 1985 Big East. The Big 12 has Arizona, Houston and Iowa State all as top-two seeds, while the Big Ten has Michigan, Michigan State and Illinois as top-three. The last time a league had an intra-conference matchup in the title game was the Big 12 in 1988 (Kansas vs. Oklahoma, when they were in the Big Eight).

2008, 2025: Famously, the only two times all four No. 1s reached the Final Four. But since 2010, only 22 of the 54 Final Four appearances have come from 1-seeds. Zero made it in 2023, joining 2006 and 2011 as the only three Final Fours without any.

1-thru-4 to win is usually a no-no: You almost never wanna go all chalk at the top in the first round. In 2007, all 1s 2s, 3s and 4s won their first-round game. It happened again in 2017 and 2025. It’s happened just seven times since 1985. How many get upset in the first round this year?

66 vs. 58: No. 1 seeds have made the Final Four 66 times. That’s slightly more than the combined Final Four showings of Nos. 4-16 since seeding began (58). 

No. 2: Only four times in the past 28 NCAA Tournaments have all four 2-seeds made the Sweet 16. It’s happened just six times since 1985: ’89, ’95, ’96, ’09, ’19, ’24 and ’25. Will we see three in a row for the first time?

12: Every seed from 1-11 has made a Final Four. When does someone from the 12-line do it? This year the options are, again, exclusively mid-major: Akron, High Point, McNeese, Northern Iowa, 

7: Though 7/10 games feel a bit like 8/9 games, they’re not. The 10s have never swept the 7s, with the exception of one year (1999). No. 8 seeds are 75-81 vs. No. 9s all-time. Here is every first-round head-to-head since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985:

#1 vs #16 158-2 (.988)
#2 vs #15 149-11 (.931)
#3 vs #14 137-23 (.856)
#4 vs #13 127-33 (.794) 
#5 vs #12 103-57 (.644)
#6 vs #11 98-62 (.613)
#7 vs #10* 97-62 (.611) 
#8 vs #9  77-83 (.481)

*2021 matchup between Oregon (7) and VCU (10) was a no-contest due to COVID

31-29: 11-seeds are 31-29 in the first round since 2010. You gotta pick at least one, and probably two, to win Thursday/Friday.

3 > 6: 3-seeds have been unusually good against 6-seeds going back to 2005, owning a 23-8 record in those second round games. 

10 > 8+9: You’re more likely to make the Sweet 16 as a 10-seed than as either an 8 or 9. No. 10s are 20-37 vs. 2-seeds, while 8-seeds are 16-62 and 9s are 6-74 vs. top seeds. Breaking down the math further: No. 10 seeds historically have about a 14% chance of making the Sweet 16, while the combined chances for No. 8s and No. 9s are about the same. Seeding matters. A 7-seed has made it to the Sweet 16 29 times since 1985. Contrast that to a No. 8, which has only gotten there 15 times. 

14-15: In the past 14 NCAA Tournaments, teams seeded 5 or 6 that enter the tourney being ranked outside the top 30 at KenPom have a 13-13 record. No one applies to this scenario this year, however. (Miami, a 7, is 31st.)

73.3-to-1: Per bracketodds.com’s calculator, those are the chances we’ll have four No. 1 seeds reach the 2026 Final Four. That’s shorter than last year’s 78.6-to-1. If you go to all No. 2s, it’s 390.9-to-1. Two 1s and two 2s is 27.4-to-1.

9,223,372,036,854,775,808: The number of different possible bracket outcomes. Wondering how to pronounce that number? I got you. That would be nine quintillion, two hundred twenty-three quadrillion, three hundred seventy-two trillion, thirty-six billion, eight hundred fifty-four million, seven hundred seventy-five thousand, eight hundred eight. It’s much larger than the number of possible outcomes seen by Doctor Strange in Avengers: Infinity War. 

3 get 1s: The 2009 Big East and 2019 ACC are the only leagues to get three No. 1 seeds. This year, the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten and SEC all have one.

38 and 93: Auburn, 38th at KenPom, is the highest team in that metric to not make the tournament. Miami is 93rd, the lowest at-large team at KenPom to ever make the NCAAs.

38 and 54: Similarly, Auburn’s 38 NET ranking makes it the highest-rated team to not make the field. (2024 Indiana State at 28 is the record.) Miami University’s 64 ranking was the lowest of any at-large in this year’s field. (Rutgers‘ 77 ranking in 2022 is the record.)           

24 of 26: A top-three seed has won the national title 24 of the past 26 tournaments. The exceptions: 2014 UConn (7) and 2023 UConn (4).

7: In 12 of the past 14 tournaments, a 7-seed or worse has cracked the Elite Eight. Who’s doing it this year?

1-38: The Big South has existed since 1986. It’s 1-38 all-time in the NCAA Tournament. The only win? Winthrop back in 2007. This year’s candidate is 12th-seeded High Point for a second straight season. The Panthers played an awful overall schedule but won 30 games and will face Wisconsin in Portland.

6 for 16: Kelvin Sampson’s Houston Cougars have made six straight Sweet 16s. No other school’s streak is longer than three. Houston’s seven Final Fours without a national title are also the most of any school.

13: The number of coaches in their first year at a school who have brought their programs to the NCAAs in Year 1: Bill Armstrong (McNeese), Flynn Clayman (High Point), Bryan Hodgson (South Florida), Jai Lucas (Miami), Phil Martelli Jr. (VCU), Fran McCaffery (Penn), Ben McCollum (Iowa), Bucky McMillan (Texas A&M), Sean Miller (Texas), Ryan Odom (Virginia), Nolan Smith (Tennessee State), Will Wade (NC State) and Kevin Willard (Villanova). That breaks the previous record of 11 in 1987 and 2008.

4: The number of at-large bids outside the Power Five conferences. Saint Mary’s (WCC), Santa Clara (WCC), Saint Louis (A-10) and Miami U (MAC). It was also four in 2025. It was eight in 2024, five in 2023 and seven in 2022.

11: The ACC’s 11 national championships since the field went to 64 teams in 1985 is the most of any conference. The Big East has 10.

40: 40 teams in the NCAA Tournament are averaging 80-plus points, breaking the previous record of 37 from 1989.

33: This is BYU’s 33rd NCAA Tournament. That’s the most of any school without ever making a Final Four.

14: Texas’ number of losses this season — marking the second straight year the same school has had the most losses of any at-large team. This is the first time that’s ever happened.

34: It has been 33 years since a No. 6 seed made the Final Four. Who was it? Chris Webber and the Fab Five at Michigan. The highest-rated 6 per KenPom is Tennessee (16th).

17: Of 68 schools dancing, 17 have won a national title: UCLA, North Carolina, Kentucky, Duke, UConn, Kansas, Michigan State, Arizona, Villanova, NC State, Louisville, Florida, Arkansas, Michigan, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Virginia.

5: The only top-eight seed yet to win a national title is a 5. Go ahead and end the streak, Arkansas, St. John’s, Vanderbilt or Wisconsin. 

0: The number of NCAA Tournament wins for Nebraska. The only power-conference school to never do it. It surely ends vs. Troy this week, right?

40 for 40 in 16: The ACC, which got eight teams in, is hoping to continue a proud trend. The conference is the only league to have at least one team into the Sweet 16 since the field expanded in 1985.

+.104: LIU rates as the “luckiest” team in the field, per KenPom. In the past 20 NCAA Tournaments, the luckiest team in the field lost its first game 19 times. (Miami is the second-luckiest in the field.) The unluckiest team this year: Texas.

1 or 2 to the Four? Not if unranked: There has never been a 1- or 2-seed that started the season unranked to go on and make the Final Four. Eight times these teams have made the Elite Eight, most recently Oregon in 2016. All 1s and 2s this year were ranked back in October.

30.8%: Florida’s 30.8% 3-point rate is the second-worst of any No. 1 seed on record. The only team worse? The Zion Williamson Duke squad from 2018-19, which was a No. 1 seed and lost in the Elite Eight.

20+: There have been four 20-point upsets against the spread in the NCAA Tournament since 1985: No. 15 Santa Clara (+20) over No. 2 Arizona in 1993; No. 15 Norfolk State (+21.5) over No. 2 Missouri in 2012; No. 16 UMBC (+20.5) over No. 1 Virginia in 2018; and No. 16 FDU (+23) over No. 1 Purdue. Kennesaw State, Penn, Siena, Idaho, LIU, Tennessee State, Queens and Furman and Howard are all dogs by more than 20 points. And we’ll have one more with the winner of Prairie View A&M/Lehigh.

30/28: Tennessee coach Rick Barnes will be making his 30th appearance in the NCAAs. He’s 33-29 all-time. Tennessee as a program, has been here two fewer times: 28.

6: The number of schools Rick Pitino has coached in the NCAA Tournament. That’s the most in college sports history, besting five by Steve Alford, Tubby Smith and Lon Kruger. Pitino’s chronological order: Boston U, Providence, Kentucky, Louisville, Iona, St. John’s. Fran McCaffery is coaching Penn, joining the aforementioned coaches as the only ones to coach five schools (Lehigh, UNC Greensboro, Siena, Iowa, Penn).

2,432: The distance as the crow flies from Queens, New York to San Diego, giving St. John’s the longest trip of any team in this tournament. The shortest? Miami University is 43.5 miles from Dayton for the First Four, but it will have to fly to Philly with a win. The closest distance to any school for a first-round game is Cal Baptist, a 101-mile trip from campus to Viejas Arena in San Diego, and that’s a 13-seed!

71.4%: Penn has the best cover percentage of all NCAA Tournament teams at 71.4%. Howard, Prairie View A&M, Hofstra, Miami University and Arkansas are next. UConn’s 38.2% ATS number is the worst in the field. 

14: A No. 14 has beaten a No. 3 in six of the past 12 tournaments. Anybody feeling North Dakota State or Wright State?

14: High Point’s 14-game winning streak is the longest entering the Dance. It’s on Wisconsin to end it. 

.811: Connecticut has the best NCAA Tournament record/win percentage since 2008 (minimum of 10 games played) in the field. It’s 30-7 in that span. North Carolina’s 42-13 record (7.41) is next-best in the past 18 years.

338: Two teams are making their NCAA tourney debut. Welcome to the club, Queens and Cal Baptist! That’s 338 schools to ever play in the NCAAs.

244: The number of schools that have won an NCAA Tournament game. We’re guaranteed to get to 245 with Nebraska vs. Troy, the first Big Dance battle since 2011 with two teams playing without an NCAA Tournament win.

36: Most consecutive NCAA tourneys: Kansas (36), Michigan State (28), Gonzaga (27). Purdue is in its 11th straight, the only other school in double digits. 

1997: The East Region has three coaches with multiple national titles (Pitino, Self, Hurley), marking the second time since 1997 a region had three who fit that criteria; it also happened last year with these same exact coaches! The East also has 32 combined national titles from the seven schools in its region, the second-most ever. (The 2022 East had 35.)

21 or better: Six of the top 21 teams at KenPom are in the East, including the No. 1 overall seed. Duke (1), Michigan State (9), Connecticut (11), St. John’s (17), Louisville (19), Kansas (21). The Midwest has six of the top 20, but one of those teams is Alabama, which now won’t have its second-leading scorer, Aden Holloway, after he was arrested earlier this week.

8: School in this NCAA Tournament with the most appearances to never win a game: Akron (8).

14-over-3 = bad for Big 12: The past four times a No. 3 seed has been upset by a 14, all those games had Big 12 teams on the losing end. But this year, no Big 12 teams are a No. 3!

55: A No. 12 seed has won 55 first-round games since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985. The ’88, ’00, ’07, ’15, ’18 and ’23 tournaments are the only ones since the field expanded to not have a No. 12 seed win. In the past 15 tournaments they are 28-40 vs. No. 5s. Don’t overlook 11s, though. That’s still a real upset, and in the last nine tournaments, they are 19-17 vs. the No. 6s. The most popular No. 12-over-5 pick at CBSSports.com/on the CBS Sports app: Akron over Purdue (25.6%).

.735: Michigan State coach Tom Izzo’s winning percentage in the second round and Elite Eight. He is 25-9 in those games (i.e., on a two-day turnaround). Should Michigan State get past Notre Dakota State, it would face either Louisville or South Florida. Izzo has never faced either of those coaches.

27-18: Since seeding the field began, No. 1 seeds have more national titles (27) than the rest of the seeds combined (18).

10-15: Pick at least one double-digit seed to reach the Sweet 16, because it has happened all but three years since ’85 (1995, 2007, 2025). And 16 times, there have been at least three double-digit seeds that made it to the regional semifinals. I know last year was brutally chalky, but surely the bracket gods were going to throw some lightning bolts our way again.

8: Since 1980, there have been eight reigning champions that have made the Final Four in the next tournament. But Florida has a really good chance to be the ninth. It’s the 15th team to win it all and follow that up with a No. 1 seed.

12 for 14: There have been 14 NCAA Tournaments since the First Four’s format was introduced. In 12 of those 14 tournaments, a First Four team has won at least two games. VCU (2011) and UCLA (2021) went to the Final Four. Last year no one did it. Anyone pushing through in ’26? 

+300: Duke’s odds to win the whole thing. That’s shorter than dominant UConn two years ago (+400) and even Cooper Flagg-led Duke last year (+330). And Duke doesn’t have starting guard Caleb Foster. Hmmmm. Either way, now you know all you need to know. Get to picking and good luck! Here is my bracket.