March Madness 2026: Big Ten Sends Five Teams to Sweet 16 in Record-Setting Opening Weekend

Nebraska's run is perhaps the more improbable story. The Cornhuskers, who spent most of the last decade as the conference's doormat, entered as a 10 seed after winning the Big Ten Tournament in dramatic fashion — their first conference tournament title since 1994. They dispatched No. 7 seed Xavier in the first round and then survived a frantic 81-79 overtime game against No. 2 seed Marquette on Sunday. Their point guard, freshman Trey Coleman, who was a consensus top-5 NBA draft pick before he ever played a college game, scored 29 points and had 8 assists in the Marquette game — a performance that has accelerated his draft stock to the point where CBS Sports' Gary Parrish projected him as the No. 1 overall pick on Monday.

“Nebraska's run is perhaps the more improbable story.”

Michigan State is in the Sweet 16 for the ninth time since 2003, validating Tom Izzo's decision to return for what he has described as his final five-year run. Coen Carr, their sophomore forward who generated national attention with a spectacular dunk in the second round that went immediately viral with 24 million views in 12 hours, is averaging 21 points and 9 rebounds through two games. Purdue is also through, making it three consecutive Sweet 16 appearances for the Boilermakers and extending their remarkable run of consistency under Matt Painter.

The ACC's collapse is the counter-narrative to the Big Ten's dominance. North Carolina lost in the first round to a 14 seed for the second time in three years. Virginia was bounced in the second round by Iowa State. Miami's star freshman guard, who had been the subject of a bidding war among NBA teams' front offices, played poorly in both games and the Hurricanes lost by 17 to a Gonzaga team that some analysts had written off after a difficult February. Duke remains, and Cooper Flagg — averaging 23.4 points, 8.1 rebounds, and 4.2 assists in the tournament — is the singular reason most analysts still regard the Blue Devils as the most dangerous team in the field.

CBS Sports and Turner Sports, which share rights to the tournament, released viewership data Wednesday showing that the combined first-weekend audience was the largest in NCAA Tournament history. Saturday's games averaged 11.2 million viewers across TBS, CBS, TNT, and truTV — a 14 percent increase over the previous record set in 2019. Sunday's second-round games averaged 13.4 million, driven by the Iowa-Florida game (18.7 million viewers on CBS) and the Nebraska-Marquette overtime thriller (15.1 million on TBS). The tournament continues to outperform all other live sports programming in the March window, including the NFL Draft and the Masters, which don't start until April.

The Sweet 16 begins Thursday, with the regional matchups set as follows in the bracket's two most-watched regions: Duke faces Arizona in the East Regional in Boston; Iowa State, which has been the most consistent team in the field regardless of seed, takes on Michigan State in the South. Nebraska's reward for beating Marquette is a matchup with defending champion Houston — a pairing that most analysts regard as the most evenly matched of the round.

For the teams still standing, the economic math of a deep tournament run is significant. CBS Sports pays out roughly $2 million per game win to each institution's conference, which is then distributed to members. A team reaching the Final Four generates approximately $8 million in conference distribution; a national championship adds another $2 million. For Iowa, a program that announced facility upgrades last fall predicated partly on tournament revenue projections, the run is financially as well as athletically meaningful.

For fans and bettors who filled out brackets earlier this month, the Big Ten's dominance represents both damage and opportunity. Most public brackets had the ACC as the overrepresented conference in the final weeks; anyone who picked multiple Big Ten teams to advance has a structural advantage over the field. DraftKings and FanDuel both reported record handle for the first two rounds — $840 million combined, per their public disclosures — and the odds board for the title now has Duke at +175, Iowa State at +300, and Houston at +350.

For college sports fans watching the broader landscape, the tournament is also a referendum on the transfer portal and NIL era. Iowa's reliance on graduate transfers like Bueckers, Nebraska's investment in Coleman as a one-and-done recruit, and Michigan State's ability to retain and develop Carr through a multi-year commitment all represent different answers to the same question: what does a successful program look like in the post-amateurism era?

The Sweet 16 begins Thursday. Sixty-four teams started. Sixteen are left. The next two days will determine whether this tournament is remembered as the Big Ten's coming-out party or another chapter in March's tradition of upending everything.