Men's Bubble Watch: Tracking which teams will make (or miss) the NCAA tournament - ESPN

The 2026 men's NCAA tournament is rapidly approaching, which means it's time to turn our attention to the biggest burning question: Will your team be in or out? It has roughly six weeks until Selection Sunday to answer that query. Until then, we're here to track how each team on the «bubble» of the bracket is trending.

We'll use a variety of metrics as guides, classifying teams based on how likely they are to make the field of 68 as one of the 37 at-large selections — conditional on not winning their respective conference tournaments for one of the 31 automatic qualifying bids (AQs). To that end, we'll use Joe Lunardi's Bracketology projections and a combination of data sources — including my forecast-model consensus and NCAA résumé metrics such as NET rankings that the selection committee will evaluate — to judge a team's underlying potential. (For a full glossary of terms and sources, click here or scroll to the bottom of this story.)

We'll sort teams in at-large contention into the following categories:

Locks: Teams that would need a significant change in momentum to miss the cut (which some inevitably still will). 24 current teams

Should be in: Teams tracking safely above the cutline, if not immune to trouble. Most likely, these teams should hear their names called on March 15, though their fates are not yet assured. 15 current teams

Work to do: Teams whose upcoming results will meaningfully change their fate (for good or bad). These are the truest «on the bubble» teams, because their chances are closest to a coin flip. 19 current teams

Long shots: Teams that would need to outperform expectations or benefit from chaos. There is little — though not zero — chance these ones will make the Big Dance without winning their