March bracket culture is really a form of temporary self-delusion. For about 48 hours, everyone becomes a minor theologian of variance, talking themselves into the idea that this year they can finally see the shape of the chaos before it happens. A six-game heater in February starts to feel like destiny. A 12-seed with a mean pick-and-roll package and a veteran guard suddenly acquires mythic properties. Entire friend groups begin speaking in the language of efficiency margins, injury whispers, and regional geography as if they have been appointed to decode fate rather than simply guess at it.
That is the pleasure of it, of course. The bracket is not compelling because it is an orderly, measured event. It is compelling because it keeps offering the illusion that disorder can be mastered by someone with enough nerve to click on the right underdog. Every March, one or two teams become more than teams—they become little traveling belief systems, carried from one round to the next by people who want the tournament to feel less like chalk and more like revelation. The best upset picks are never just statistical arguments. They are aesthetic choices, acts of faith dressed up in rebounding rate and guard play. And when one of them lands—when some lower seed walks into a first-round game looking utterly unimpressed by the logo across from it—that is when the bracket stops being a worksheet and turns back into what it really is: the most glamorous public unraveling in American sports. And DraftKings Sportsbook has you covered for the action this year with their $1 Million+ Men’s College Basketball Tournament Bracket contest.
We’ll get into all the specific rules re. tables and payouts, but the important thing to note here: fundamentally, it’s no different than filling out a printable bracket. You’re just making picks. And what’s as pure as an unpopulated bracket before the First Four round even begins?
I break down the contest rules as well as some of my favorite early-round upsets and champ picks below.
DraftKings $1 Million+ Men’s College Basketball Tournament Bracket Challenge 2026 Rules
Contest Rules and Play Structure
I lifted these directly from the rules and conditions tab of the challenge, which you can also find by clicking this link. I’ve provided an image, as well:
Pick the correct answers by the start of the 2025 NCAA Men’s College Basketball Tournament to win guaranteed prizes! The contest allows users to pick the results of the NCAA Men’s College Basketball Tournament (the “Tournament”) games for a chance at winning cash prizes. Each correct selection will give a user points. Points received are designated by which round a team has won.
Round / Points Received
1 / 10 points
2 / 20 points
3 (Rd of 16) / 40 points
4 (Rd of 8) / 80 points
5 (Last 4) / 160 points
6 (Championship) / 320 points
The Contestant with the highest total number of points at the end of the Tournament wins the Contest. As part of every Contestant’s entry, they are asked to predict the final total points scored in the Championship game of the Tournament. The closest predicted score to the final total points scored in the Championship game of the Tournament will be used to break any ties between Contestants who finish the Contest with the exact same number of points. In the event multiple Contestants finish with the same number of total points and the same (closest) total point prediction for the Championship game, such Contestants shall evenly split the portion of the Prize Pool associated with the tied finishing positions. All selections will lock once the first game tips off, the timing of which will be made known to the entrants in advance of the Contest start time. Once a user is entered into the contest, they would not be able to withdraw from the contest under any circumstance. All prizes will be paid out upon the completion of the tournament.
Here is the link to the full terms, as well.
Now, let’s get to the fun. Below, I break down a few of my favorite pick for the tournament champion, as well as some sneaky sleepers who might make it out of the first round and much deeper.
First-round upset picks
I also talk more in-depth about these teams’ upset paths in their bracket regions in my Five 2026 March Madness upset predictions to help you win your bracket piece:
11-seed VCU over 4-seed UNC
VCU is the strongest first-round upset on the board for me because the seed line and the market are already arguing with each other. North Carolina opened only -2.5, which is basically a neon sign saying this is not a normal 6-vs-11 gap. VCU has the exact profile that makes this feel less like a cute upset and more like a team that can drag Carolina into the wrong kind of game: 36.7% from three, a 54.1% eFG, a 0.437 FTA/FGA, 73.9% at the line, a 13.0% turnover rate, and 1.159 shooting efficiency. That is a nasty tournament cocktail—make shots, get to the stripe, and do not donate empty possessions. The Rams also defend well enough to keep the floor from falling out, allowing just a 48.9% opponent eFG while generating 7.4 steals per game. Carolina still has a strong offensive baseline—54.6% eFG, 79.8 points per game, and only a 12.1% turnover rate—but the Tar Heels are now trying to survive March without Caleb Wilson, and that strips some of the margin for error out of a matchup that was already priced like a toss-up. VCU just won the A-10 title. This feels like a team arriving with its game already packed.
10-seed Santa Clara over 7-seed Kentucky
Santa Clara is my second pick because this is the kind of 7-vs-10 game where the lower seed has a real stylistic pry bar. Kentucky opened only -3.5, and Santa Clara comes in 26-8, having won 13 of its last 16. The Broncos are built like the kind of team that turns a blueblood’s first-round game into an anxiety spiral: 82.8 points per game, 54.6% eFG, 56.5% on twos, a 45.0% three-point rate, a huge 35.0% offensive-rebound rate, a 13.2% turnover rate, 16.6 assists per game, and a 1.526 assist-to-turnover ratio. That is spacing plus second chances plus offensive order, which is exactly the mix that can make a favorite feel slower than it wants to be. Kentucky’s season-long defensive numbers are respectable—48.8% opponent eFG and 31.6% opponent three-point shooting—but the Wildcats are still vulnerable to a game that becomes about extended possessions and board work. Florida just beat them up 50-29 on the glass with 18 offensive rebounds in the SEC tournament, which makes Santa Clara’s rebounding profile feel less theoretical and more like a live wire in this specific matchup. This is why the Broncos feel dangerous: they do not need a miracle shooting night to make Kentucky uncomfortable. They already have multiple ways to bend the game.
Dan Johnson’s 2026 March Madness Champion Pick
Houston Cougars
Houston basketball is a system, and I believe this is the year the system pushes its operators to the title. Systems, by nature, are less susceptible to mood, whistle, or the random atmospheric cruelty of a bad shooting night. So it goes with Kelvin Sampson’s machine. The Cougars are 28-6, a No. 2 seed in the South, and fifth on the national-title odds board at 10/1, but the real seduction is in the machinery underneath the label. This is still one of the meanest possession-for-possession teams in the field, a Kelvin Sampson team in the old sense and a slightly more evolved one in the newer sense. Houston ranks No. 1 nationally in turnovers per game at 8.5 and No. 3 in turnover rate at 10.9%, while also sitting 12th in assist-to-turnover ratio. Defensively, the profile is pure Sampson scripture—62.9 points allowed per game, No. 2 nationally; 46.6% opponent eFG, No. 17; 45.5% opponent 2-point shooting, No. 9; and an opponent assist-to-turnover ratio of 0.815, No. 8. They also allow only 30.1 first-half points per game and 32.6 after halftime, which is the statistical signature of a team that does not just endure tournament pressure but narrows the room, strips the air out of it, and waits for the other side to panic first.
What makes this version more dangerous than some of Houston’s earlier bruisers is that the offense no longer feels like a concession speech delivered through clenched teeth. Kingston Flemings has become a real star—16.4 points, 5.3 assists, 47.5% from the field, 39.2% from three, and 83.9% at the line—and the first freshman All-American in program history. Emanuel Sharp gives Houston the kind of veteran closer every title team eventually needs: 15.3 points per game, 37.1% from three, 89.2% from the line, plus the school record for career made threes. Milos Uzan adds 11.1 points and 4.0 assists, a stabilizing hand in the backcourt, while the frontcourt supplies the old Houston menace in bulk form. Chris Cenac Jr. is at 9.5 points and 7.5 rebounds, and Joseph Tugler brings 8.4 points, 5.4 rebounds, and 50 blocks. Even the recent-form story reads correctly. After that February three-game skid, Houston beat BYU 73-66, then flattened Kansas 69-47 while holding the Jayhawks to 24.6% shooting, before losing a competitive 79-74 Big 12 title game to Arizona. Nothing about that stretch suggests drift. It looks more like recalibration.
The bracket only sharpens the case. Houston opens with Idaho, then gets Saint Mary’s or Texas A&M in round two, and if the Cougars get through the first weekend the South regional moves to Toyota Center in Houston for the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight. That is not quite a home game, but it is close enough to feel like the bracket giving a great team a familiar hallway. Reuters flagged Houston as the most dangerous No. 2 seed for exactly that reason. And yes, the South has real teeth—Illinois as the 3, Nebraska as the 4, Vanderbilt as the 5, North Carolina as the 6, and the probable Elite Eight collision with No. 1 Florida—but that is also why Houston makes the most sense. Against shinier contenders like Duke, Arizona, Michigan, or Florida, the Cougars still own the most portable tournament virtues: no wasted possessions, elite point-of-attack defense, a genuine star guard, enough shooting to punish help, and a veteran closer who can salt away a game at the line. Other teams may look more dazzling in the bracket app. Houston looks like the one built to still be standing when the lights get cruel.
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