The last frontier of March Madness upsets was crossed in 2018, when the No. 16-seed UMBC Retrievers stunned Tony Bennett’s No. 1-seed Virginia Cavaliers.
Since then, fans have become even more daring with their bracket picks.
A No. 16-seed beating a No. 1 seed remains one of the most improbable scenarios in sports, but not impossible, as proven also by the Fairleigh Dickinson Knights in 2023 against the Purdue Boilermakers.
With the looming start of the 2026 edition of March Madness, ESPN revealed some of the most popular upset picks by fans thus far.
Among the four No. 16–No. 1 matchups, ESPN shared that the showdown between the 16th-seeded Long Island Sharks and the No. 1-seed Arizona Wildcats is the most favored to end in a stunning upset.
There’s a reason why the Wildcats were given a top seed on Selection Sunday. Arizona lost only twice in the regular season before winning it all in the Big 12 Tournament. Those two losses came at the hands of ranked teams Kansas Jayhawks and Texas Tech Red Raiders, and with a combined margin of just seven points. The Wildcats did not get this far only to get embarrassed in the first round by a team that has a total of zero Quadrant 1 and Quadrant 2 wins.
But Cinderellas don’t really care about resumes, and Long Island, coached by former NBA star point guard Rod Strickland, will be looking to hit its target with a slingshot against a basketball Goliath in the form of the Wildcats.
Interestingly enough, the Sharks and Fairleigh Dickinson are both from the NEC, which could be home to two 16-seed giant slayers by Saturday.
