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2026 NCAA Tournament Survivor Pool Advice: Round 2 (Sunday)

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If you made it to Friday (the second day of the opening round) in your NCAA Tournament survivor pools, there is a great chance you were still eligible to compete on the weekend as well. Take a look at this fascinating trend for how favorites dominated on Friday.

As a result, you got a huge leg up on your fellow survivor pool contestants if you were bold enough to back teams in more coin-flip matchups like Miami or Kentucky. Nevertheless, those who heeded Friday’s advice are still in a great position, especially since one of those picks (Kansas or St. John’s) will be eliminated in Sunday’s head-to-head matchup.

Throughout the tournament, one has to make eight picks:

  • Two for the First Round (one for each day)
  • Two for the Second Round (one for each day)
  • One for the Sweet 16
  • One for the Elite Eight
  • One for the Final Four
  • One for the National Championship.

Each round, we will provide our analysis broken down by the following categories: Best Picks, Favorites on Upset Alert and Teams to Save for Later.

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    2026 March Madness Survivor Pool Advice: Round 2 (Sunday)

    Here is a list of odds for all the favorites to win their second-round matchups on Sunday. Be sure to check out the folks at PoolGenius as well for their NCAA survivor data.

    Round 2 Odds

    (Odds courtesy of DraftKings Sportsbook)

    Best Picks

    Purdue Boilermakers

    Purdue was one of five of KenPom's top eight conference tournament winners that were placed in this loaded West Region. The good news is that Miami is not one of them, and the Boilermakers should play much more relaxed now that Braden Smith has officially set the NCAA all-time assists record.

    Miami plays zone defense 18% of the time, but Purdue is one of the best zone offenses in the country. And the Boilermakers are built to negate the Hurricanes' biggest offensive advantage, as they rank 23rd in defensive rebounding rate while Miami is a top-16 offensive rebounding team.

    This survivor pool pick is also backed by the trend that Boilermakers head coach Matt Painter is now 17-8 ATS as a favorite in the NCAA Tournament after Friday’s cover against Queens.

    Texas Tech Red Raiders

    The Red Raiders proved they can be just fine (for now, at least) without injured star JT Toppin, as they shot a blistering 75% in the second half on Friday to beat the Zips by 20 in a laugher. The more impressive part was that their defense held Akron to 17 points below its season scoring average.

    While Alabama usually has a distinct advantage over its opponents in three-point volume, Texas Tech is a bad matchup for the Crimson Tide as one of the few teams left in this tournament that can match them shot-for-shot.

    Alabama leads the Division I in three-point attempt rate and three-pointers made per game, but Texas Tech is third and fifth, respectively, in those categories. And those numbers have skyrocketed for the Red Raiders since Toppin's injury, shooting threes at a 51% rate or higher in four of the last five games.

    This is certainly a risky pick as the second-shortest favorite on the board. But the Red Raiders are gaining steam after actually opening as underdogs, and I am not using Iowa State in this spot after losing arguably its most important player, Joshua Jefferson, to an ankle injury.

    Favorites on Upset Alert

    Teams to Save for Later

    Arizona and Florida are both Elite 8 contenders, at the very least. While no team from this list is in danger of a Round of 32 upset, keep them handy for the later rounds when they are still prohibitive favorites while fewer teams are available to choose from.

    Mike Spector is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Mike, check out his archive and follow him @MikeSpector01.

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