And just like that, 32 teams are gone, 32 teams remain. While there weren't many upsets to be had in the first round this year, there were some awesome games like Wisconsin-High Point, Kentucky-Santa Clara, and VCU-UNC. And now, we have what might be the best two days of sports viewing out there. This season produced the strongest group of 1-25 ranked teams in the history of KenPom, and now we're going to see them all go to battle. It's time to grab the popcorn. I've got the best bet for both matchups in the East Region below. Here are our top 2026 NCAA Tournament picks for Saturday’s East Region action.
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2026 NCAA Tournament Picks: East Region (Saturday)
No. 3 Michigan State vs. No. 6. Louisville
In a chalk v. chalk matchup, Michigan State and Louisville take each other on in Buffalo. With no Mikel Brown, it felt like everyone (myself included) was confident in USF pulling off the upset over Pat Kelsey's squad. Turns out they didn't need Brown. Despite the final score, where USF actually covered, Louisville pretty much controlled the entire game, leading 62-39 at one point. The Cardinals shot 52 percent from deep and held the Bulls to 15 percent from the same region.
Against Michigan State, I expect them to come back down to earth, but that's where the Sparty are most susceptible. Tom Izzo's squad ranks 22nd in three-point attempt rate allowed this year and 341st in limiting quality looks, per Shot Quality. Considering the Cardinals shoot the three at the fourth-highest rate in the nation, Haslametrics projects 54 percent of Louisville's shots to come from deep, 15 percent higher than the national average.
This means this game has a lot of outcomes. If Louisville is hot, they'll crush; if they're cold, not so much. Against Michigan State, North Dakota State only went 6-25 (24 percent) from deep, so I don't expect that same luck against a better shooting team that already showed they can drain it from a high clip in this venue. On the other side of the ball, Louisville can compete with Michigan State on the glass and defend their mid-range looks, where Izzo's squad loves to shoot.
Whenever there's a high variety of outcomes, I like to take either side of the extreme. I'm taking Louisville ML straight up here because I trust them to make enough threes to send Sparty packing. If you're doing that, pairing it with the over is an idea I support as well.
Pick: Louisville Moneyline (+165 BetMGM)
No. 1 Duke vs. No. 9 TCU
After avoiding what would have been one of the biggest upsets in the history of college basketball, Duke finds themselves going toe-to-toe with the mean fightin' Jamie Dixon Horn Frogs. TCU battled Ohio State for 40 minutes, leading by 15 and trailing by five at different points in the second half, to take care of business against Bruce Thornton and Co.
After the Duke-Siena game, Maliq Brown admitted that he thought Siena would be "a cake walk." This led to Duke with their largest deficit of the entire season! Against Siena! I know it's easy to write that off as nerves and point to how teams bounce back, but we've seen enough where I trust that there are chinks in the Duke armor without Caleb Foster and Patrick Ngongba. They barely scraped by Florida State, battled with Virginia the entirety of the ACC championship, and looked nothing like themselves to open the tournament. With Foster and Ngongba off the floor this year, Duke's effective field goal percentage drops from 58.3 percent to 52.5 percent, with their defense going from first to seventh in efficiency ranking. That's still exceptionally good, but when you should be the best team in the nation, you shouldn't rank 18th since March 7th on Bart Torvik. It's a short, five game sample size, but something is wrong.
Even if Duke was at full strength, TCU is not the 8/9 seed you want to see here. The Horn Frogs were two completely different squads against tougher opponents this year, with their Bart Torvik ranking against top-50 teams moving them up to 17th, compared to their 49th year-long rank. That's better than teams like Iowa State and Arkansas against top-50 opponents. Jamie Dixon's squad finished the year going 9-2 and has the bodies to stop the Duke offense. David Punch and Xavier Edmonds both played well against Ohio State as bruising interior presences that can score around the rim, draw fouls, and block shots. Duke's defensive rebounding numbers have also dropped to 44th in their last five games compared to ninth all season. So the TCU frontcourt should be able to capitalize on missed looks with second-chance opportunities. On the other side, TCU limits transition points and ranks in the 95.6th percentile at defending the rim attack against top-50 opponents, per Hoop-Explorer – the shot attempt that Duke attempts at the 53rd highest rate in the nation.
I'm not saying Duke won't recover and isn't the better team here. But I'm trusting the small sample size of their last handful of games when handicapping this game, and am trusting the Horn Frogs to keep this one close.
Pick: TCU +12 (-110 Fanatics)
