After our first glance at the 2025 men’s NCAA tournament bracket, all we can say is if you like upsets, look out.
This is our 20th year of tracking and predicting NCAA tournament upsets, and year after year, we lose a handful of our favorite underdogs because they fail to win their conference tournament. This year, though, almost all of our best potential Bracket Breakers made the field of 68. What’s more, some of them also managed to draw one of our most vulnerable giants. (We’re looking at you, UC San Diego and Michigan.) The result: eight games with a 30 percent upset chance or greater, compared to six last year.
As March Madness 2025 kicks off, we are back in our Bracket Breakers bunker, feeding data to our trusty model, Slingshot, in our annual search for upsets. Our study of advanced metrics to find key statistical markers for the types of teams that pull off March surprises – as well as the vulnerable giants who fall prey to pesky killers — has accurately identified Cinderellas ranging from VCU’s 2011 Final Four squad to last year’s Oakland team. (If you’re new to this series, check out the full explanation of how that works.) And as noted, there are a number of teams in this year’s field that our numbers say are ready to shatter brackets.
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Over the next few days, we’ll break down every first-round matchup with a difference of at least five seeds (our qualifying margin for a game to be considered a true “upset”). We’ll also list the odds for every potential second-round matchup that would qualify for Bracket Breaker status.
Slingshot, powered by Furman math professors Liz Bouzarth, John Harris and Kevin Hutson, has already been hard at work. It created basic power ratings, then adjusted them based on how closely each team fits the statistical profiles of past Davids or Goliaths. Add in a layer of cluster analysis – an archetypal grouping of teams – and then it moves on to analyzing matchups. And after all that, it’s ready to spit out its 10 likeliest first-round upsets. So enjoy these for now, and get ready for more in-depth previews of the madness to come.
10 Most Likely First-Round Upsets
1. No. 11 San Diego State* vs. No. 6 Ole Miss
Upset Chance: 43.9 percent (*This would first require San Diego State to oust North Carolina in the play-in game.)
2. No. 11 VCU vs. No. 6 BYU
Upset Chance: 43.1 percent
3. No. 12 Colorado State vs. No. 5 Memphis
Upset Chance: 42.2 percent
4. No. 12 UC San Diego vs. No. 5 Michigan
Upset Chance: 37.7 percent
5. No. 11 Drake vs. No. 6 Missouri
Upset Chance: 33.7 percent
6. No. 11 North Carolina* vs. No. 6 Ole Miss
Upset Chance: 32 percent (*This would first require North Carolina to oust San Diego State in the play-in game.)
7. No. 12 Liberty vs. No. 5 Oregon
Upset Chance: 31.4 percent
8. No. 12 McNeese vs. No. 5 Clemson
Upset Chance: 30.9 percent
9. No. 13 High Point vs. No. 4 Purdue
Upset Chance: 28.4 percent
10. No. 12 Xavier* vs. No. 5 Illinois
Upset Chance: 26.9 percent (*This would first require Xavier to oust Texas in the play-in game.)
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Mitchell Layton, Christian Petersen / Getty Images)
