Dan Johnson has been an editor, writer, and analyst for DraftKings and DraftKings Network since 2024. He’s previously held editorial posts at The Paris Review, Macmillan Publishers, Bedford/St. Martin’s Press, ASSIGNMENT Magazine, and FantasySixPack. You can find his various editorial work & writing (sports-related and non-) at all of the above.
Texas vs. NC State seems, by name, more like a game that escaped from deeper in the bracket. Two No. 11 seeds, two at-large teams, two brands with actual pressure attached, and a winner that immediately gets BYU in the West. Texas arrives 18-14 after a 9-9 SEC season and a six-Quad 1 résumé that […]
March 17, 2026
The word Cinderella has always been a little too delicate for what these teams actually do. It makes them sound ornamental, accidental, as if they wandered into March wearing borrowed glass slippers and happened to stay. The teams worth betting on are usually less dainty than that. They defend like pests, they run like thieves, […]
March 16, 2026
The first lie of March Madness is that the bracket arrives as a verdict. It certainly does not. It arrives as an invitation—to argue, to mythologize, to turn five months of data into a handful of private superstitions and then call the whole thing expertise. The official 2026 men’s field is out now, the seed […]
March 16, 2026
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 […]
March 16, 2026
The 2026 Best Picture race ended felt as razor-thin as so many other competitive contests in the calendar month of March. This was a field crowded with wildly different kinds of ambition: Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle after Another brought big-canvas political spectacle, Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein turned gothic grief into prestige craft, Joachim Trier’s […]
March 15, 2026
What an absolutely glimmering field of writing we had this year. Robert Kaplow’s chamber-piece self-immolation in Blue Moon; Jafar Panahi’s moral-pressure cooker It Was Just an Accident; Ronald Bronstein and Josh Safdie’s feral ambition machine Marty Supreme; Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt’s exquisitely bruised family drama Sentimental Value; and Ryan Coogler’s mythmaking, genre-splicing Sinners. All […]
March 15, 2026
Selection Sunday always sells itself as a clean act of revelation, as if the bracket is merely uncovering what the season already settled months ago. In reality, it is half coronation, half erasure. The official 2026 field is here, with Duke, Arizona, Michigan, and Florida on the one-line, but the loudest men’s-bracket arguments immediately shifted […]
March 15, 2026
The Nebraska Cornhuskers landed a four seed in the South Region of the bracket, and they’ll face off against the 13-seed Troy Trojans. Nebraska vs. Troy opening odds Troy arrives as the Sun Belt champion with a statistical profile built around offense and rebounding. The Trojans finished 22-11 overall (12-6 Sun Belt) and average roughly […]
March 15, 2026
The undefeated Miami (OH) Redhawks are officially dancing, and it all begins with a First Four matchup against the also-eleven-seeded SMU Mustangs. Miami (OH) vs. SMU opening odds The 7–10 line always has the potential to tilt a bracket, and this matchup carries that exact energy. Santa Clara arrives at 26-8 after one of the […]
March 15, 2026
The Kentucky Wildcats landed a seven seed in the South Region of the bracket, and they’ll face off against the 10-seed Santa Clara Broncos. Kentucky vs. Santa Clara opening odds The 7–10 line always has the potential to tilt a bracket, and this matchup carries that exact energy. Santa Clara arrives at 26-8 after one […]
March 15, 2026
The Virginia Cavaliers landed a three seed in the East Region of the bracket, and they’ll face off against the 12-seed Akron Zips. Virginia vs. Wright State opening odds Wright State arrives as the Horizon League champion at 22-11, carrying a style that rarely hides what it wants. The Raiders play quickly, score 80.6 points […]
March 15, 2026