Cinderella teams don’t necessarily win your office’s bracket pool, but they do help a lot. Also after correctly calling a big upset there is no better feeling than talking about it with a coworker in the lunch room. Which teams could put the glass slipper on in this year’s NCAA Tournament? Here are some of the best March Madness Upsets to pick on your bracket.
March Madness Upsets To Pick For Your NCAA Tournament Bracket Pool
UC San Diego Tritons
UC San Diego looks like one of the most probable March Madness upsets this year. Eric Olen’s squad swept the Big West Conference regular season and tournament titles this season. UC San Diego went 30-4 overall in the process. The Tritons are one of the best 12-seeds we have ever seen. Five years ago UCSD was a Division-II team and 2025 was actually the first year UC San Diego was eligible to participate in the NCAA Tournament.
Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones (19.5 PPG, 5.5 REB, 3.7 AST) is the star of the team. He hails from New Zealand and is a 6-foot-6 ballhandler that can do it all. 2025’s Jack Gohlke could be the Tritons’ Tyler McGhie. The deadeye shooting guard has launched north of 200 3-pointers (8th most per game nationally) this season and is hitting them at a 37.2% clip.
The calling card for UCSD has been their incredibly positive turnover margin, one of the best in the country. On defense the Tritons create the 2nd most turnovers per possession. Michigan, UC San Diego’s first round opponent, struggles to take care of the ball (328th out of 364 teams in turnover%). The Wolverines just played three games in three days to win the Big Ten Tournament. Also working against Michigan is the fact they will have to play on short rest, with a tip time of 10:00 Ann Arbor time at elevation in Denver, Colorado.
Yale Bulldogs
James Jones did it again, Yale is in the NCAA Tournament for the third time in the last five years. Last season the Bulldogs pulled a big first round upset in the 4-vs-13-seed game against Auburn. This season their first opponent, Texas A&M, also hails from the SEC. The scouting report on the Aggies is very simple: Wade Taylor iso-ball, offensive rebounding, athleticism, and experience.
Yale’s point guard, Bez Mbeng, rarely comes off the floor. Mbeng is a 3-time Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year and he will be stuck on Taylor like glue. The Senior isn’t just a defensive specialist (13.5 PPG, 5.5 REB, 5.6 AST) he is pivotal in creating plays for the Bulldogs.
The two true offensive stars for Yale this season have been on the wing John Poulakidas and Nick Townsend. Poulakidas is a sharpshooter, he is draining threes at a 41% rate. Townsend is the team’s 2nd leading scorer, 2nd leading rebounder, and thus will be pivotal in keeping Texas A&M off the glass. In general the Bulldogs are suited well for the matchup with the Aggies (22nd defensive rebounding %).
INTERESTING NOTE: Two of the best Round 1 upsets (UC San Diego and Yale) could play each other in the Round of 32. If by chance Yale wins and UCSD does not, a cool storyline opens for the Bulldogs with a matchup against Danny Wolf and Michigan. Wolf played for Yale in the previous two seasons, the Bulldogs would be chomping at the bit for the chance to play him.
High Point Panthers
Alan Huss’ team currently holds the nation’s second longest winning streak (14). High Point has tremendous depth for a mid major and their roster contains a couple of transfers that were former high major player. Bobby Pettiford is the sixth man on this team and he spent the first two seasons of his college career at Kansas! Kimani Hamilton (13.4 PPG, 4.7 REB, 2.3 AST) was a Freshman on the 2022 Mississippi State tournament team. D’Maurian Williams (13.5 PPG, 3.4 REB, 2.3 AST) spent 2023 and 2024 at Texas Tech.
The Panthers’ opening round opponent, Purdue, could use some of that talented depth. There is no denying that Braden Smith, Trey Kaufman-Renn, and Fletcher Loyer is tough to match. However High Point does have Juslin Bodo Bodo, a 7-footer from Cameroon, that can bang with TKR and slow him down.
Stopping Smith will be a tall task but HPU’s Kezza Giffa and company will be ready for a high scoring affair in Round 1. Lastly, the Boilermakers are not new to losing to high seeds in the NCAA Tournament. In the last four tourneys Coach Matt Painter has lost games to a 16-seed, 15-seed, and a 13-seed.
Drake Bulldogs
Ben McCollum is in his first season as head coach in Des Moines, Iowa. McCollum’s last stop as head coach was at his alma mater, D-II Northwest Missouri State. When he accepted the Drake job McCollum was able to convince four important contributors to his 2024 team to transfer to the Bulldogs. In result Drake is 30-3 this season.
Drake operates at a historically slow pace. The Bulldogs don’t just rank 364th out of 364 in adjusted tempo, they have the longest average possession length in the last decade per KenPom. Just because they play slow doesn’t mean they can’t put up points. Bennett Stirtz is the name to know. He puts up almost 20 points per game, while dropping over 5 dimes, and grabbing over 4 boards per contest.
The Bulldogs would be higher on this list if we didn’t know that Coach Ben McCollum was considering more new jobs. McCollum is one of the buzziest names for the upcoming coach carousel which means he could be distracted heading into his first ever Div. 1 NCAA Tournament game.
Colorado State Rams
Colorado State might be one of the most popularly picked 12-vs-5 March Madness upsets this year. The Mountain West champs are rolling into the NCAA Tournament with a 10-game winning streak. On Barttorvik.com if you sort the data from when the sun run began the Rams would rank as the 8th best team in all of college basketball. However, just like the Drake situation, Head Coach Niko Medved may already know where he will be coaching next season other than Fort Collins.
On KenPom.com’s Player of the Year standings Nique Clifford (19 PPG, 9.7 REB, 4.4 AST) is 6th overall. This season there was a question of whether Colorado State would be able to replace Isaiah Stevens production. Even though he isn’t the point guard, Clifford has successfully answered many of those questions.
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