***Official 2026 NCAA Tournament Thread***

Agreed on the expectations. Multiple high seeds the last decade. One immutable law of the NCAA tourney is that getting out of the 1st weekend is fan bliss. You get a solid 2-3 days of sports talk gushing over your team. I totally love it.

ISU not getting past this round of 16 the last decade has really left a sour taste in my mouth. It's kinda mind boggling that they couldn't win at least 1 of them. ISU has dudes, so I feel decent about them winning on Friday despite the injury, but the ghost of NCAA past is renting space in my brain. For me thats been a major deterent for expectation and being in this spot in the tourney again.

I would have liked to move past the Sweet 16 in both 2022 and 2024, but in both years Miami and Illinois (respectively) played fast enough to nullify our defense. This year I don’t think there’s a team fast enough like that; the question this year is can the offense get out of our traps, find the open ma on the backside, and get hot enough from 3 to make us pay for our aggression. So far nobody outside the Big 12 has been able to do that to us, and I don’t see Tennessee being able to do that either - especially when they commit as many turnovers as they do (and that’s before they had to play against our defense, which specializes in that).
 
Hey, @HoopsTournament, how many times in 64-team era has there been 3 teams from same conference in Sweet 16 within a single region (as with Big Ten in South Region this season)?

This might be "findable" with a random web search, but easier to ask you :)
I think it has to be a first. Super conferences have messed with bracketing rules and it wouldn't even have been possible unless you got at least 10 bids since there used to be so many more double plays.

He's probably going to prove me wrong :)
 
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