Men's NCAA Tournament bracket is out!

Mar 02, 2026
Hudson Johnson and Mary Hardin-Baylor get one more trip to start the NCAA Tournament.
d3photography.com photo by Ryan Coleman
  

Here's who's going where when the NCAA Tournament starts on Friday. Because of NPI, we already knew the 64 teams who were playing, but we also knew a good amount about who might be playing each other. It's not just the teams, but the seeding and the locations.

One minor difference is that the committee got one extra flight, more than we projected, and used it to bring Whitworth down to Texas and send Mary Hardin-Baylor to the Midwest. That's a win for general geographic diversity in this bracket. 

This year, all we're left with is some questions about how teams got seeded where they are. Why did Babson, the No. 21 seed, get put into a pod with the No. 1 overall seed, Trinity (Conn.)? In a normal seeding, Trinity would face someone closer to the No. 32 seed in the second round, and our mock bracket came really close to that. Redlands, the No. 16 overall seed, is not hosting because it would make a general destructive mockery of the bracket, but instead is sent to the No. 17, and given a first-round opponent in Susquehanna, the No. 48 seed, perfectly appropriate for Redlands' placement in the bracket.

Lehman coach Steven Schulman actively campaigned -- OK, well, posted on X -- that his team would be glad to leave the immediate New York City area. That did not work out, as Lehman was sent to Middletown, Connecticut, to play Wesleyan. But there is a lot of travel in this bracket, most of which could be readily predicted by any of a number of mock brackets, such as Penn State-Behrend going to the University of Chicago, Heidelberg going to Illinois Wesleyan, and Amherst going to Mary Washington.

This year's Division III men's basketball NCAA Tournament ends at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, with the national title game played on Sunday, April 5. The D-III final was last played at the D-I Final Four host city in 2013, although it was scheduled to in 2020 before the COVID pandemic caused the cancelation of the 2020 NCAA Tournament after the field was whittled to 16.

The full list of seedings from 1-64, via the NPI.

Rank Team Conf NPI How? At-large
rank		 Overall
seed
1 Trinity (Conn.) NESCAC 72.862 AQ - 1
2 Emory UAA 71.491 AQ - 2
3 St. Thomas (Texas) SCAC 70.633 AQ - 3
4 Mary Washington C2C 69.817 AQ - 4
5 Chicago UAA 69.626 At-Lg 1 5
6 Randolph-Macon ODAC 69.086 At-Lg 2 6
7 Endicott CNE 67.586 AQ - 7
8 Wesleyan NESCAC 67.533 At-Lg 3 8
9 Tufts NESCAC 67.335 At-Lg 4 9
10 Illinois Wesleyan CCIW 66.577 AQ - 10
11 Christopher Newport C2C 66.498 At-Lg 5 11
12 Gustavus Adolphus MIAC 65.826 AQ - 12
13 UW-La Crosse WIAC 65.652 AQ - 13
14 Washington U. UAA 65.506 At-Lg 6 14
15 Montclair State NJAC 65.372 At-Lg 7 15
16 Redlands SCIAC 65.197 AQ - 16
17 Hood MACC 65.141 AQ - 17
18 Mount Union OAC 64.365 At-Lg 8 18
19 UW-Whitewater WIAC 63.898 At-Lg 9 19
20 UW-Stevens Point WIAC 63.668 At-Lg 10 20
21 Babson NEWMAC 63.095 AQ - 21
22 Roanoke ODAC 63.067 AQ - 22
23 Catholic LAND 63.007 At-Lg 11 23
24 New York University UAA 62.939 At-Lg 12 24
25 Franklin and Marshall CC 62.905 At-Lg 13 25
26 Trinity (Texas) SAA 62.712 At-Lg 14 26
27 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps SCIAC 62.507 At-Lg 15 27
28 Bates NESCAC 62.346 At-Lg 16 28
29 TCNJ NJAC 62.083 AQ - 29
30 WPI NEWMAC 62.01 At-Lg 17 30
31 UW-Platteville WIAC 61.998 At-Lg 18 31
32 John Carroll NCAC 61.708 AQ - 32
33 Amherst NESCAC 61.512 At-Lg 19 33
34 Johns Hopkins CC 61.477 At-Lg 20 34
35 Otterbein OAC 61.305 At-Lg 21 35
36 Mary Hardin-Baylor ASC 61.264 AQ - 36
37 Rhodes SAA 61.175 AQ - 37
38 Cortland SUNYAC 60.973 AQ - 38
41 Grinnell MWC 60.607 AQ - 39
44 Gettysburg CC 60.398 AQ - 40
46 Whitworth NWC 60.339 AQ - 41
56 Western Connecticut LEC 59.114 AQ - 42
61 Loras ARC 58.887 AQ - 43
62 Washington & Jefferson PAC 58.86 AQ - 44
64 Yeshiva SKY 58.624 AQ - 45
65 St. Joseph's (Maine) GNAC 58.552 AQ - 46
71 Aurora NACC 58.217 AQ - 47
75 Susquehanna LAND 57.841 AQ - 48
78 Hope MIAA 57.693 AQ - 49
80 Vassar LL 57.57 AQ - 50
99 Maine-Farmington NAC 56.309 AQ - 51
100 Transylvania HCAC 56.309 AQ - 52
101 Penn State-Behrend AMCC 56.279 AQ - 53
105 Heidelberg OAC 56.128 AQ - 54
114 Stevens MACF 55.738 AQ - 55
122 N.C. Wesleyan USAC 55.576 AQ - 56
129 Penn State-Harrisburg UEC 55.404 AQ - 57
144 Lehman CUNYAC 54.365 AQ - 58
157 Worcester State MASCAC 53.611 AQ - 59
165 Neumann AEC 53.181 AQ - 60
187 MUW SLIAC 51.88 AQ - 61
203 Belhaven CCS 51.257 AQ - 62
217 Bethany Lutheran UMAC 50.496 AQ - 63
234 Keuka E8 49.569 AQ - 64