After months of waiting, March Madness is finally here.

The First Four is already providing plenty of drama for college basketball fans, but that's merely an appetizer to the main course that starts on Thursday and picks up on Friday when both the men's and women's tournaments will be in full swing.

So what can we expect over the next three weeks? Our experts weigh in with their predictions for which No. 1 seeds are the most vulnerable, which teams are the best Cinderella picks, Final Four teams, national championship winners and more.

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NCAA men's tournament predictions

Don’t go buck wild picking teams seeded 12th or worse to win their first-round matchups in this year’s NCAA tournament.

This could be the second straight year when most teams that advance have deep pockets, not glass slippers.

A combination of college basketball’s skyrocketing NIL payouts and the elimination of transfer restrictions has funneled the best players to the power-conference level and widened the gap between the sport’s haves and have-nots. Teams at the top of this year’s bracket are loaded with prized freshmen, international talent and proven veterans who can earn more money playing college basketball than in overseas pro leagues or the G League.

By the numbers, Duke, Arizona and Michigan enter this year’s NCAA tournament as three of the strongest No. 1 seeds in recent memory. Each boast KenPom adjusted efficiency margins of at least 37.59, meaning that’s how many points that college basketball statistician Ken Pomeroy would project them to outscore the average Division I opponent by over 100 possessions.

Since the KenPom era began in 1997, only 10 teams have ever finished a season with adjusted efficiency margins higher than 35. Four of those are last year’s No. 1 seeds.

It isn’t just the No. 1 seeds who are unusually formidable this season. A total of 20 teams seeded sixth or higher have adjusted efficiency margins of plus-25. Only four teams finished above 25 at the end of the 2022-23 college basketball season. The year before that, there were nine. 

It’s the opposite story for schools from single-bid leagues who populate the seed lines at the bottom of this year’s bracket. Their adjusted efficiency margins are far weaker than usual this season as they’ve dealt with more roster turnover than usual and more power-conference schools poaching their best players.

Does that mean this year’s NCAA tournament is guaranteed to be a repeat of last March when the Sweet 16 was populated with nothing but high-majors? Not necessarily. March Madness didn’t get its name for nothing. The unexpected will happen. 

But don’t count on seeing another Florida Atlantic in this year’s Final Four or another St. Peter’s in this year’s Elite Eight. This is going to be another March where the juggernauts mostly swat aside the giant slayers and battle for the championship amongst themselves.

—Jeff Eisenberg

NCAA women's tournament predictions

If there were ever a year to automatically pencil in every No. 1 to the Final Four and feel good about it, this might be it. The four-pack of UConn, UCLA, Texas and South Carolina stood above the rest and is the third collection of teams to earn No. 1 seeds the year after they all played in the Final Four. They finished this season as four of the top five teams in net rating, led by UConn (plus-53.1) and extending down to South Carolina’s plus-39.3 that is nine points higher than the next-closest squad, according to CBB Analytics.  

The Huskies (34-0) put up one of their most dominant seasons ever despite losing All-American Paige Bueckers to the WNBA. UConn’s net rating is third all-time, trailing two of the Breanna Stewart-led championship teams of the 2010s. A new best-in-program-history player is arriving in Sarah Strong, who could tie Stewart with four titles in four years. The 6-foot-2 forward makes everything look easy and paces this iteration with nearly unheard of shooting splits of 60.1% from the field, 42.7% from 3 and 87.3% from the free throw line. 

UCLA (31-1) went undefeated in the Big Ten with a 51-point win in the conference title game over Iowa. The Bruins only lost to Texas back in November. Texas (31-3) and South Carolina (31-3) took some hits in the SEC schedule, but still stood above the pack in a deep conference of heavyweight talent. 

At least one No. 2 or No. 3 seed has reached the Final Four every tournament since 2018, the last time all No. 1 seeds reached the final weekend. Only three times since 2009 have all No. 1s made it to the Final Four. So if putting through all four feels wrong, take a look at Sacramento 2 for an upset pick. LSU is the fifth team of the top five in NET rating at a second-best 43.7, though its numbers are bloated from a weak non-conference schedule in which they stacked 100-point outings like candy. Still, their guard group can torch a defense. 

In terms of a champion? Only three times since 2009 has a non-No. 1 seed won it all. Two of those are since 2023, and both of those teams were already mentioned here. UConn won as a No. 2 seed last April and LSU, with a freshman Flau’jae Johnson, took it all in 2023 as the No. 3 seed. Stick to the classics this year to avoid the bracket bust.

— Cassandra Negley

Everything you need to know about March Madness

Printable NCAA brackets for both men’s and women’s tournaments
Tourney Bracket 101: How to choose upsets, make your picks
Ranking all 68 teams in the NCAA men’s tournament
Men’s regional breakdowns: East | West | Midwest | South
Women’s regions: Fort Worth 1 | Sacramento 2 | 3 | 4
5 Men’s Cinderella picks | Women’s Cinderella picks
Which top seeds could bust your bracket?
Dark horse teams that could blow up your bracket
AI predicts every game in the NCAA men’s tournament
First-round tip times for men’s games | Women’s games

The WNBA and its player union reached a tentative agreement on a new collective bargaining agreement after more than a year of negotiations, Front Office Sports’ Annie Costabile reported early Wednesday morning.

Per The Athletic’s Mike Vorkunov, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert said the two sides had “aligned on key elements of a new CBA,” while WNBPA vice president Breanna Stewart said, “this deal is going to be transformational.”

The verbal agreement term sheet will be sent to the players and the WNBA Board of Governors for a vote.

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The monumental news comes eight days after the passing of the March 10 suggested target date the WNBA gave for the season to start on time. Over the past week, the two sides have held marathon bargaining sessions in Manhattan to iron out the sticking points in negotiations, namely revenue sharing.

“This is historical for women’s sports,” WNBPA president Nneka Ogwumike said, via the AP’s Doug Feinberg. “I told Cathy it’s not just for the players that are entering the league or the players that aren’t already here. We’re just really grateful to be able to come to a deal. We’re proud of ourselves.”

According to The Athletic, Engelbert said training camp and the 2026 season will start on time, with the league scheduled to begin its 30th season on May 8.

Players opted out of the previous CBA in October 2024 to advocate for a revenue-sharing structure that would tie their salaries to the business. They centered it as their No. 1 priority, including wearing “Pay Us What You Owe Us” T-shirts at All-Star, and into the heat of tense negotiations.

After blowing past the initial CBA deadline last year, the league and players union entered a "status quo" period and continued negotiating after the second deadline extension expired on Jan. 9. A moratorium deal days afterward put free agency on hold, and the sides met in person on Feb. 2 for the first time in the new year. Since then, the union and league have traded proposals while cracks emerged in the player contingent. In mid-December, players voted nearly unanimously to authorize the WNBPA executive committee to vote to strike.

Engelbert said repeatedly that the league wants players to make more, and they would, but there were disagreements on how that would look. There was a revenue-sharing model in the previous CBA, but it was structured differently than the players wanted this time around. For the first time in history, the league made enough money in 2025 to trigger revenue sharing. During negotiations, the league offered deals based on percentage of net revenue, whereas the union used gross revenue and included expansion fee monies in its offers.

Prioritization, team-provided housing, retirement and family planning benefits, facility standards, and core designations also became touchpoints.

With the deal, the league will avoid a work stoppage that would have been the first in its history. The WNBA turns 30 when play begins in 2026, but will first enter into a busy, condensed offseason with negotiations behind it.

The attention now turns to a two-team expansion draft for the Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo. The terms of the draft were part of collective bargaining; existing teams were not able to prepare their lists without guidelines. Three more teams will join by the end of the decade.

There will also be a crunch on free agency. Qualifying offers and core designations were delivered from Jan. 11-20 a year ago, and player negotiations could begin on Jan. 21. That timeline will have to shift later in the year in what will be a bonanza of a free agency period. All but two players not on rookie contracts are free agents, to best take advantage of the new CBA.