March Madness bracket predictions from our college basketball expert, with 1 big surprise

Here’s our latest set of expert bracket picks for the 2025 men’s NCAA tournament.

Let’s get this out of the way: We’ve had a couple of real good years in a row in this space. Two years ago, we nailed the UConn national championship pick and finished in the 100th percentile (41,822nd out of over 20 million brackets) on ESPN. A year ago, we ran it back with UConn and once again finished in the 100th percentile. Overall, our last four national champion picks have at least made it to the Final Four.

Basically, we’re long overdue for a massive regression. Fade this bracket.

I’ve gone back and forth between Auburn, Duke and Florida for my national title pick the last three months. I settled in on Florida a few weeks ago, and now they’ve become arguably the trendiest champion pick, which I hate. I initially picked the Gators to get knocked off by UConn in the second round, but thought better of it seconds later, and so here we are.

If UConn winds up pulling it off, that’s your annual reminder to trust your gut this time of year.

South Region

A lot of people are claiming that Auburn got a raw deal with this bracket. While I agree that getting either Creighton and Ryan Kalkbrenner or Louisville in Lexington in the second round is unfair, I’m not convinced that the bottom half of this bracket is as stout as some believe it is.

UC San Diego over Michigan is a trendy upset pick for good reason. The Tritons are a top 40 team in the country according to every metric and the Wolverines, despite their great run in the Big Ten tournament, have been winning close games at a historic rate all season long. Get ready to speak Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones.

Texas A&M survives the annual terrific March performance from an Ivy League team, and then takes care of UCSD to set up a Sweet 16 showdown with Auburn, which gets the better of Creighton in a Saturday afternoon thriller that pits Kalkbrenner against Johni Broome in the post.

North Carolina is going full 2011 VCU in this region (or at least almost full 2011 VCU). The team that had no legitimate case to be in this field gets hot, goes nuts and rolls all the way to the Elite Eight. The Heels have two super powers at force here: 1) The scorned ACC team that nobody believes in power. 2) The scorned First Four team that nobody believes in power. Combine these forces and you have an Elite Eight run.

Marquette, which doesn’t exactly come into this tournament riding a high, pulls a “reverse Marquette” and knocks off an overachieving 2-seed in Michigan State before running into the red-hot Heels in the second weekend. Carolina’s magic runs out in a major way is they run into a buzzsaw against Auburn in the regional final.

West Region

As mentioned, I feel like UConn still has some March magic left in them, which means they probably lose to Oklahoma. I’m assuming they don’t and they push top-seeded Florida to the brink before falling.

Red-hot Colorado State is favored over Memphis, and double-digit seeds as first round favorites are typically unstoppable in this tournament. They race past the Tigers and then take down Maryland’s “Crab Five” (who get pushed by Grand Canyon) to make their first Sweet 16 since 1969.

Drake pulls the upset of Missouri, the national love for Ben McCollum intensifies, but then screeches to a halt when they run into Texas Tech. Kansas finally plays to its potential for the first time in two years, and after a close call against Arkansas, they stun St. John’s and Rick Pitino to move onto the Sweet 16.

Florida and Texas Tech both take care of business in the regional semifinals to set up what I think would wind up being the best game of the Elite Eight. The Gators get it done and punch their ticket to San Antonio.

East Region

There’s going to be at least one super chalky region this year, and the East is my bet.

Baylor over Mississippi State and Vandy over Saint Mary’s are the only first round “upsets,” and both of those teams are one-and-done. BYU pulls the only upset of round two, taking down a Wisconsin team that has played above its level all season long.

The result of this chalk is a tremendous second weekend with Duke and Arizona playing a rematch of the 2001 title game, and BYU and Alabama playing a game that could flirt with 200 total points. The favorites prevail once again, and Duke faces ‘Bama in the only 1 vs. 2 marchup of the tournament.

Duke makes a huge statement here and manhandles Alabama in the most anticipated game of the Elite Eight. The performance solidifies the Blue Devils as everyone’s favorite heading into the Final Four.

Midwest Region

The last 15 years have shown us that there is always at least one region that surprisingly falls apart a little bit and produces a Final Four team seeded 7th or worse. In recent years I’ve been very good at predicting the region, but not getting the team right (took James Madison last year and Oral Roberts the year before that). As close as I came to making the West that region this year, I’m going with the Midwest.

The madness starts in the first round with High Point taking out Purdue and Troy pulling the stunner of the tournament by once again sending Kentucky home packing after a single game.

Houston survives the upset pick that everyone thinks is going to happen by taking care of Gonzaga and stopping the Bulldogs one win short of becoming the first program in NCAA tournament history to make 10 straight Sweet 16s.

The real stunner happens at the bottom of the bracket, where lightly thought of UCLA adds to Tennessee’s lengthy history of March misery with a second round stunner. The Bruins then take advantage of the chaos above them to take out Illinois in the Sweet 16 and set up a regional final date with highly-favored Houston.

The Elite Eight game is one of those regional finals that you can’t really explain (think Duke-NC State last year). I think Houston is very, very good. I don’t think UCLA is all that good. So how do I think UCLA beats Houston and sends Mick Cronin to his second Final Four? I have no Earthly idea.

March.

Final Four

Duke brings UCLA back down to Earth with a Final Four beatdown in the first semifinal. The second game is a classic, as Auburn’s one major weakness — its tendency to run a bit hot at key moments — finally bites it. The Tigers melt down in the closing moments of regulation and open the door for Florida to advance to its first national title game since 2007.

The Gators join college basketball’s elite three-timers club after topping Duke in a classic. Walter Clayton Jr. proves once and for all that guards matter the most in March, as his monster performance is too much for Cooper Flagg and company.