March Madness Minus Madness?

With a lull in the NBA calendar, and Olympic betting being fun but not my personal area of expertise, I went hunting for something worthy of writing about…March Madness!

I found a great look-ahead from Will Warren at Basket Under Review on what the 2026 tournament profile is shaping up to be, and more importantly, what that implies for upsets (or the lack of them).

This will be a shorter newsletter: a quick summary of his insights with some betting implications, and then a shot to keep winning with our Bet of the Week.

Let’s get after it.

Summary: The Field Looks Very Top-Heavy

Warren’s core claim is simple: if you’re hoping for Cinderellas on Thursday/Friday, 2026 may disappoint. 

The data he analyzes points to a field that’s unusually “haves vs. have-nots,” which tends to suppress the big-seed stunning upsets in Round 1.

The best part of the piece is the way he makes “top-heavy” measurable.

He takes KenPom efficiency margin (think: how many points better than an average team you’d be per 100 possessions) and snapshots every season at the same point in the calendar: February 15.

Here’s part of that table:

Then he groups teams into buckets (Top 5, Top 10, Top 25, Top 50, and 51–100) and measures the average gap between those buckets for each year.

He’s using these gap measures as a proxy for how likely we are to see the lower half of the NCAA tournament field upset the top half (or quarter).

Here’s a snapshot of that data with the largest gaps bolded:

What the chart is screaming about 2026

The Top-5/Top-10/Top-25/Top-50 groups are sitting at their strongest average levels ever recorded.

The only group that isn’t unusually strong is teams ranked 51-100, which is the group that will be tasked with pulling off miracles in the first round of March Madness.

No field on record has larger gaps from the Top-5/Top-10/Top-25 to the 51-100 band.

The closest historical comp years (with large gaps favoring top teams) are 2000, 2017, and 2025, and in those three tournaments combined, there were zero wins by 13-through-16 seeds.

When he looks past Round of 64, the profile suggests Round of 32 could be lively (examples from comparable years include multiple 8-over-1 and 7/10/11 seeds popping higher seeds).

His “best guess script” is basically:

• Boring Round of 64

• Enthralling Round of 32 (more upsets and close games)

• Favored team (likely #1 seed) as champ

• One unexpected team in the 5-7 range crashing the later rounds

The betting implication: lean chalk more than usual on Thursday/Friday

If this field is truly that top-heavy, here’s the adjustment I recommend:

Be more willing to play chalk in round one, and more selective with the “storybook underdog” wagers on Thursday/Friday.

I’d bring this same lean into conference tournaments, and skew toward laying points with rested favorites facing underdog teams advancing from a win.

Betting lines will incorporate some of this strength, but early round gambling and especially brackets will include a lot of public money, so there’s likely edge to be gained by skewing your bets toward chalk.

Now let’s get to an immediate bet!