If you followed our NCAA tournament survivor pool advice for each day of the NCAA Tournament thus far, you are likely still alive and competing entering the Sweet 16 round.
As with any survivor pool, it takes a lot of strategy and a little bit of luck to win, and we strategized our way through avoiding picking Florida, as that was always a team we wanted to identify for later use. But outside of Iowa’s upset of the Gators on Sunday, March Madness has thus far been devoid of shocking results.
In Round 64 and 32, closing favorites finished 39-9 SU and 29-19 ATS…
+ The 39-9 SU mark is fewest dog upsets since 2018 and T-2nd-fewest last 20 yrs
+ The 29-19 ATS mark for favs is best since 2008 ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/KIJ7235QVB— Evan Abrams (@EvanHAbrams) March 23, 2026
Now is the time to buckle down and really go through your predictions for how the rest of the NCAA Tournament will play out, as there are still four picks left to be made, but just 16 teams to choose from.
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.
We rank all four Friday Sweet 16 games in order of most to least confident and provide a short narrative for each.
- NCAA Tournament Odds
- NCAA Tournament Pick’Em Contest
- NCAA Tournament March Madness Bracket Optimizer
- NCAA Tournament Betting Trends
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2026 NCAA Tournament Survivor Pool Advice: Sweet 16 (Friday)
Here is a list of odds for all the favorites to win their Sweet 16 matchups on Friday. Be sure to check out the folks at PoolGenius as well for their NCAA survivor data.
Sweet 16 Odds
(Odds courtesy of DraftKings Sportsbook)
Best Sweet 16 Survivor Picks (Ranked in Order)
Iowa State Cyclones
I completely understand if you want to wait to hear the injury news about Iowa State’s leading rebounder and second-leading scorer, Joshua Jefferson, before committing to pick the Cyclones in a survivor pool. But the fact is that Iowa State still beat a surging Kentucky team by 19 points without him, while dealing the Wildcats their worst NCAA Tournament loss since 1972.
There are several betting trends that support Iowa State. First, favorites of four or more points (Iowa State is currently -4.5) are 73-10 straight up (SU) and 50-33 against the spread (ATS) in the tournament since the start of last year. In addition, when top-four seeds are facing a No. 5 seed or worse, those higher seeds are 57-5 SU and 39-23 ATS.
Michigan Wolverines
Let me start by saying that if you think Michigan is bound to win or play for the National Championship, you absolutely can and should not use them in this round of survivor pools, unless your remaining competition has a much worse outlook remaining.
I do not believe Michigan would beat Arizona if they met in the Final Four, and there is a chance that Iowa State gets Jefferson back for this weekend, which makes the Cyclones a tricky matchup for the Wolverines. Thus, if you feel Michigan has a great chance of being the second No. 1 seed picked off in this tournament before the Final Four, I suppose you could do worse than the Wolverines in this round.
Duke Blue Devils
St. John’s is a very scary matchup for Duke because of its defensive prowess, physicality and Hall of Fame head coach Rick Pitino on the sideline. There is also a very good chance that the Blue Devils muster up enough to win this game by taking advantage of the Red Storm’s shooting woes, but then having little left in the tank on a short turnaround in the Elite 8.
If forced to choose between using any of the remaining No. 1 seeds in this round, I would use Michigan before Duke, since I like Duke’s path to get to the National Championship game more.
UConn Huskies
UConn is amid an incredible run under head coach Dan Hurley, as the two-time champs are 18-4 ATS in NCAA Tournament games. If I am nitpicking anything here, it’s that Hurley is a perfect 8-0 ATS in “quick turn” games (i.e., Round of 32, Elite Eight, National Championship), while Tom Izzo and Michigan State will have had four days to prepare for this matchup.
This is a coin-flip game despite what the ATS trends say, so I would avoid picking the Huskies in survivor pools at all costs.
Mike Spector is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Mike, check out his archive and follow him @MikeSpector01.