Bracket Carnage: Florida Is Dead, Texas Is Dancing, Nebraska Finally Broke Through, and March Madness Is Doing March Madness Things

The first weekend of the 2026 men’s NCAA tournament did what it always does: it turned smart people into liars, bracket sheets into confetti, and one random coworker who picked based on uniform colors into a possible genius. The headliner entering the bracket was No. 1 overall seed Duke, and that hasn’t changed yet. But everything around the Blue Devils got a whole lot messier over the first four days.

Let’s start with the biggest body on the board: Duke still looks like the team to beat

If you wanted a clean, drama-free first weekend from the tournament favorite, Duke mostly gave it to you. The Blue Devils handled Siena in the opener and then beat TCU 81-58 in the second round behind Cameron Boozer’s 19 points and 11 rebounds. So yes, the national-title case remains simple: Duke has the best player on the floor in most games, the deepest collection of NBA-ish bodies, and it still looks like a team that can win ugly if it has to.

But this weekend wasn’t really about the chalk — it was about the chaos

The first huge jolt came before the Sweet 16 was even set, when 12-seed High Point beat 5-seed Wisconsin 83-82, one of the earliest real “your bracket is already on hospice” moments of the tournament. Then the weekend escalated from there, because once March smells blood, it doesn’t stop nibbling.

Texas over Gonzaga was the “oh this tournament is drunk” upset

No. 11 Texas taking out No. 3 Gonzaga 74-68 felt like the exact kind of result that makes March Madness impossible to quit. Texas came out of the First Four, then beat BYU, and then got Gonzaga with a late Cam Heide three — his only basket of the game — to seal it. That means Texas became the first team since UCLA in 2021 to go from the First Four to the Sweet 16, which is a very polite way of saying the Longhorns have been freeloading on chaos and loving every second of it.

St. John’s beating Kansas was pure sicko-ball theater

This one had everything: a comeback, a collapse, a buzzer-beater, and a box score that makes no sense once you actually stare at it. St. John’s beat Kansas 67-65 on Dylan Darling’s game-winning layup with 3.9 seconds left, even though he had been 0-for-4 before that final shot. The Red Storm led by as many as 14, nearly coughed the whole thing up, and still survived. It sent St. John’s to its first Sweet 16 since 1999, which is a sentence that made a lot of New York people immediately act like it was 1985 again.

Nebraska finally did the thing

You asked for it specifically, and yes — Nebraska finally got over the hump. The Cornhuskers beat Vanderbilt 74-72 on Braden Frager’s layup with 2.2 seconds left, officially reaching the first Sweet 16 in program history. That is not “first one in a while.” That is first ever. Vanderbilt nearly stole it at the horn, but the miss held, the state of Nebraska inhaled all at once, and one of the sport’s weirdest historical dry spells was finally dead.

And then Iowa detonated the bracket by taking out the defending champs

This was the “everybody stop what you’re doing” game of the weekend. No. 9 Iowa beat No. 1 Florida 73-72, making the Gators the first 1-seed to fall in this tournament. Alvaro Folgueiras hit the game-winning three with 4.5 seconds left, capping one of the best finishes of the weekend. Tavian Banks scored 20, and Iowa — which spent most of the night looking like the better team — held off a late Florida surge to reach its first Sweet 16 since 1999. So yes, the defending champs are out, and yes, every bracket that leaned “just take the reigning champ and move on” is now in the recycling bin.

A few other results mattered because they clarified the real contenders

Houston looked like a team that is not interested in your little Cinderella story, hammering Texas A&M and setting up a Sweet 16 matchup with Illinois, which blasted VCU. Reuters noted Houston won its first two tournament games by 30-plus points, the first team to do that since 2008 — which is usually not the profile of a team merely trying to “survive and advance.” Meanwhile, Michigan had little trouble with Saint Louis, and Arizona survived a very annoying Utah State comeback attempt to reach its third straight Sweet 16.

UConn also reminded everyone that title muscle memory is a real thing

The Huskies beat UCLA 73-57, and Alex Karaban went for a career-high 27 points. UConn wasn’t perfect, but once it found the right run, the game tilted hard. The reward is a Sweet 16 matchup with Michigan State, which beat Louisville and quietly keeps acting like the kind of team you regret disrespecting in March. It’s not flashy, but it’s annoyingly competent — the most dangerous kind of March team.

Purdue handled business, which almost counts as surprising in March

The Boilermakers beat Miami 79-69 behind Fletcher Loyer’s 24 points, moving to the Sweet 16 for the seventh time in nine years. That should not be overlooked, because Purdue in the opening weekend has often been a national trust exercise. This year, at least so far, the Boilermakers look composed, efficient, and set up for a really fun Sweet 16 game against Texas. And yes, if Cam Heide hits a dagger against his former program, the internet may explode in a cloud of transfer-portal dust.

Iowa State and Tennessee also shoved their way into the conversation

Iowa State beat Kentucky 82-63, with Tamin Lipsey exploding for 26 points as the Cyclones forced 20 turnovers and turned the second half into a horror movie for the Wildcats. Tennessee then beat Virginia 79-72, sending Rick Barnes to a fourth straight Sweet 16. Neither result is as funny as Iowa killing Florida, but both matter because they give us an Iowa State–Tennessee Sweet 16 game that feels like it should come with a neck brace.

So where are we heading into the Sweet 16?

Most of the bracket is set now, and the marquee matchups look like this: Duke vs. St. John’s, UConn vs. Michigan State, Arizona vs. Arkansas, Purdue vs. Texas, Houston vs. Illinois, Nebraska vs. Iowa, and Iowa State vs. Tennessee. The last Sweet 16 spot in the Midwest was still pending on ESPN’s live board at the time that game page was open, with Alabama leading Texas Tech in the second half; the winner gets Michigan. So the field is either fully set by the time you read this, or one final fan base is still pacing around a living room and blaming one missed box-out from 11 minutes ago.

Who looks best right now?

Duke is still the cleanest title pick because the Blue Devils have the highest ceiling and haven’t really blinked. But the first weekend also sharpened a second tier that feels very real: Houston looks terrifying, Arizona still has top-end talent and rebounding, UConn has that “we’ve done this before” posture, and Purdue looks steadier than the national jokes would like to admit. Then you have teams like St. John’s, Texas, Nebraska, and Iowa — each of them now one or two bounces from turning this into full chaos. Which, if we’re being honest, is exactly what we all want.

The first weekend gave us everything this tournament promises every year: one-seeds sweating, bluebloods bleeding, underdogs getting weirdly confident, and at least one team from the state of Iowa making everyone rethink their life choices. Texas got Gonzaga. St. John’s got Kansas. Iowa got Florida. Nebraska finally got its Sweet 16. The bracket is still standing — barely — but it now looks like it went twelve rounds with a lawnmower. And that means March Madness is officially alive and deeply unwell.