In a poll of 60 ESPN college basketball analysts, 33 picked Arizona to win the 2026 NCAA Tournament. Arizona was picked by 50 of the 60 ESPN college basketball analysts to win the West regional and advance to its first Final Four since 2001.
Per Sachin Chandan, the writer of the article with the predictions, noted lead ESPN college basketball sideline reporter Kris Budden, who called the Big XII Championship game and long-time reporter Myron Medcalf were among those who picked Arizona to make the Final Four.
Arizona received 50 out of the 60 votes to win the West Region. West Region second-seeded Purdue and fourth-seeded Arkansas each received five votes to advance to the Final Four. Duke and Michigan joined Arizona as number one seeds ESPN analysts chose as favorites to make the Final Four, with Houston the fourth choice.
After Arizona, Michigan is the second choice to win the national championship with 10 votes. Duke received nine votes, five analysts picked Florida and Houston and Purdue each have one prediction for them to win the national championship.
When it comes to who will travel to the Final Four, ESPN's BPI thinks that 2-seed Houston has the better chance to advance out of the South region than defending champion and 1-seed Florida 👀 pic.twitter.com/2eFeVTLW4j
— ESPN Insights (@ESPNInsights) March 19, 2026
ESPN analytics NCAA Tournament projections
The ESPN Basketball Power Index projects Duke as the favorite with a 24.4 percent chance to win the national championship. Michigan is second at 15.3 percent and Houston is fourth at 9.4 percent. The Blue Devils are the favorite to make the National Championship at 37.9 percent.
Michigan is second at 27.7 percent to make the National Championship game, followed by Arizona at 26.1 and Houston at 17.3 percent. Duke is also first with a 57.0 percent chance to make the Final Four, followed by Michigan at 45.9 percent, Arizona at 44.8 percent and Houston at 33.3 percent.
Duke also leads with BPI projections to make the Regional Finals at 74.7 percent, Arizona is second at 69.2 percent, followed by Michigan at 68.3 percent and Florida at 60.0 percent. The ESPN BPI runs 10,000 simulations to get its projections.
Among other notable ESPN analysts to predict Arizona to win the national championship are lead play-by-play announcer Dan Shulman, his analyst Jay Bilas and College Gameday analyst Jay Williams.