Sick of hard-hitting analysis of the 2026 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament? Up to your eyeballs in expert picks chock-full of astute takes on players to watch and budding upsets?
Fear not, friends: your pals at Anonymous Eagle are here to inject some half-baked, homespun “insight” into the proceedings, with our (mostly) annual region-by-region tour, as we go Anonymously Through the Brackets.
For each region, we’ll give you our patented Anonymous Eagle Half-Arsed Analysis with: a gutless pick to win
the region; a sleeper regional champ; a CRUSH YOUR MAN upset special; a player/team we’d pay to watch; a player most likely to carry his team singlehandedly to the Sweet 16; and the best player in the region that you’ve never heard of before.
We wrap up our run around the bracket in the Midwest Region…..
GUTLESS WONDER Pick To Win The Region
Here is a true fact about this season: Michigan was ranked #1 in the AP poll for just one week. Sure, they’ve been in the top seven all season long, in the top four every week since December 1st, and never lower than 3rd since January 19th. The reason they’re not #1 right now? They scheduled a neutral site game against current-#1-ranked Duke and lost by five points!
Yaxel Lendeborg is a terrifying big man who would be an excellent starting center on every team in the country, and he gets to play with 7’3” Aday Mara as the actual 5-man here. They shoot the hell out of the ball, they’re the best defensive efficiency team in the country even though they’re not great at forcing turnovers, and they might be surly about losing to Purdue in the Big Ten title game.
CHEX BOLD PARTY MIX Bold Pick To Win The Region
Okay, stick with me here.
Texas Tech star JT Toppin blew his knee out in mid-February. It would not have been wrong to write off the Red Raiders at that point. But in their third game without Toppin, they went on the road against Iowa State — who happens to be the #2 seed in this region to help make my point here, and won, 82-73, in Ames, in a building that is famous for tilting games in favor of the Cyclones. Texas Tech ended up the #5 seed here, partially because of the loss of Toppin, sure, but also because of their losses — Illinois, Purdue, Arkansas, Houston, Kansas — with him. They’re capable of winning games against tippy top opponents without Toppin, and that gives them a shot as the Bold Pick here.
Just do not ask me to talk about what they did against Iowa State in the Big 12 tournament as evidence that this is a good idea. It’s not supposed to be! We’re being bold here!
CRUSH YOUR MAN Upset Special
Well, the OBVIOUS one here is #10 Santa Clara over #7 Kentucky, as the Wildcats have been struggling all season and honestly, the prediction computers have it as essentially a toss-up anyway. You could talk me into Hofstra over Alabama or Wright State over Virginia as a pick here.
But, we’re doing the FUN thing here, and we’re taking Miami University to beat SMU in the First Four and then hand Rick Barnes and Tennessee a very hilarious first round loss in a 6/11 games. Has Rick Barnes been to three straight Sweet 16s? Yep! Are the last two Volunteers teams tied for the best Tennessee teams in KenPom history? You betcha! Does that mean that Rick Barnes is due for a colossal collapse that will pay off a great college basketball storyline by giving the one-loss RedHawks a national spotlight and make former Tennessee head coach Bruce Pearl look like an even bigger ding-dong? SEEMS LIKE IT TO ME!
Player I’d Pay To Watch
Guys, Saint Louis center Robbie Avila is going to play his first NCAA tournament game on Thursday night.
He shoots it, he passes it, he’s aware of and appreciates the jokes, what’s not to like? The Billikens are in the 8/9 game against Georgia, so hopefully we get the slight seed line upset and thus are served up Steph Blurry against Michigan in the second round.
The Chiropractor Special: aka Who Can Put The Team On His Back?
We’re going Wisconsin-themed here, and tagging Iowa State’s Milan Momcilovic.
Yes, Joshua Jefferson is the guy at #2 in the Player of the Year rankings over at KenPom.com. Maybe he’s going to do a bigger collection of things in a game to help the Cyclones go on a tear here. However, Momcilovic is the leading scorer on this roster, largely because he’s shooting — and this is not a joke — a best-in-the-country 49.6% on three-pointers this season. And he’s not doing this by picking his spots. Momcilovic fires off 7.5 threes per game on average. He is LAUNCHING IT, and cashing 50% of them. Do you realize what kind of damage he can do if he gets on a hot streak? A heater for him is 60%! Think about it!
Best Guy You’ve Never Heard Of
Miami University has been the attention getter in the Mid-American Conference all season long because of their undefeated regular season. However, the analytics have always favored Akron as the better team, and they only lost to the RedHawks by three points back in early January. The Zips have only lost one time since then, and the big reason why is Tavari Johnson. The 6’0” guard from Illinois is the KenPom Player of the Year in the MAC, partially because of his 38% three-point shooting, partially because of his league high 20.1 points per game, partially because of his 87% free throw shooting, the team high 5.0 assists per game, and because he’s listed at just six feet, we can’t ignore the 61% shooting inside the arc.
Follow Anonymous Eagle on social media
Facebook: AnonymousEagle
Instagram: AnonymousEagleSBN
Bluesky: AnonymousEagle
