They’re the very reason we call it March Madness. They happen every year, those early upsets that shred the most well-conceived brackets. And, they always leave us asking the big question: “Why didn’t we see that coming?” Well, sometimes we did, but picking the right upsets in the round of 64 can be the difference between winning a piece of your pool or contributing to someone else’s beer fund. We’re here to help.

Once again, we’ll stick to the NCAA record book’s definition of an upset as a team beating an opponent seeded five or more places higher. This means the 7-10 and 8-9 games are essentially tossups. Even so, there seems to be a lot of potential for chaos this year, thanks to a significant number of accomplished teams from outside the so-called power conferences. Here are a half dozen such teams to keep an eye on as the first round unfolds. There might be other agents of chaos coming from outside this list – did anyone have Oakland taking down Kentucky last year? But we think these double-digit seeds have the best chance to make noise.

No. 12 Colorado State over No. 5 Memphis

Comparing conferences isn’t always a valid predictor of success in this event, but there’s an argument that CSU’s finishing kick in the Mountain West was better preparation than the Tigers’ run through the one-bid American. The Rams enter on a 10-game winning streak, and if you don’t know about Nique Clifford yet, you soon will. Memphis also has talent and has won eight in a row itself, but even the books have CSU as a slight favorite.

No. 11 Drake over No. 6 Missouri

The Bulldogs, winners of 30 games and repeat champs of the Missouri Valley despite a coaching change and roster makeover, will be another popular upset choice. Drake’s top dog is Bennett Stirtz, a do-it-all floor leader like CSU’s Clifford who is ready for his moment on the big stage.

REGIONAL BREAKDOWNS: East | West | Midwest | South

BOLD PREDICTIONS: 10 potentially surprising results in men’s tournament

No. 13 Yale over No. 4 Texas A&M

Another pesky bunch of Bulldogs, this one from the Ivy League, will look to take down an SEC squad in the round of 64 for a second consecutive year. This season’s Yale team does not have big man Danny Wolf, who is now at Michigan, but it does have sharpshooter John Poulakidas and numerous other guys capable of getting hot from the arc. The Bulldogs won’t be overawed after beating Auburn last season.

No. 11 Virginia Commonwealth over No. 6 Brigham Young

And here we have another group of Rams, representing another program that has made noise in March in the not-too-distant past. VCU paced the Atlantic 10 for much of the season and even briefly cracked the top 25 thanks to experienced hands like scoring guard Joe Bamisile and versatile forward Jack Clark. BYU, which was also playing its best basketball during the latter half of the campaign, is a tough draw for the Rams. The game will almost certainly feature a slew of three-point shots.

No. 12 UC San Diego over No. 5 Michigan

Among March Madness newcomers, the Tritons might be best equipped to pull off a win. The driving force for UCSD is Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones, the team’s top scorer and facilitator who also crashes the boards. They will be at a considerable size disadvantage against the Big Ten champion Wolverines, but Michigan is coming off short rest after winning the final contest on Selection Sunday.

No. 13 Akron over No. 4 Arizona

The Zips might be the longest of the long shots on this list of candidates. Their three-point shooting can be spotty, and they needed to erase an 18-point deficit in the MAC championship game against the Miami RedHawks just to get here. But the Wildcats’ NCAA tournament history can be described as feast or famine, with four Final Four appearances and a national championship but also some notable flameouts.

Hurry! There’s still time to get your NCAA Tournament brackets submitted. Even better, there’s still time to start a pool in your office or among your friends.

While March Madness is one of the greatest times to be a sports fan, it can be made even better by adding that element of competition among your compatriots. Of course, the best way to make your mark in any survivor pool is to win. However, if you can’t win, you might as well go down with a stellar name that makes your counterparts smile, laugh or laud your wit.

Here are our favorite bracket names from around the internet as we approach the Round of 64:

Best March Madness bracket names

General college basketball bracket names

Fade this Bracket − a little self-deprecation never hurt anybody, and it adds a sense of irony to your victory should your bracket do well. At the very least, it prompts people to have very little faith in your bracket, so even if you struggle, you can say you called it.
16 Seed Moneyline Lock − everyone loves backing an underdog. Maybe don’t put money on a No. 16 seed, but basing your bracket around that could be fun. Plus, it would make for a great story if a 16 seed did wind up upsetting a No. 1 seed.
Hope This Bracket Finds You Well − works great in an office setting. Fortunately though, unlike most emails, the bracket should actually find your colleagues well for the most part.

College/mascot-inspired names

Auburn Notice − Auburn is a good team to back this year, boasting arguably the best player in college basketball this year in Johni Broome. Throwing in a reference to an underrated TV show is also a huge plus.
UCan’t Beat Me − A name like this sets the tone early. It’s confident and references the reigning back-to-back champs. It’s tough to beat (no pun intended).
Remembering the Pac-12 − nothing beats a trip down memory lane, and with this being the first year of college basketball without the beloved conference. Will they rebuild? Who knows? But as it stands, it’s fun to look back.
Big Blue’s Due − you can never go wrong with a rhyme, and given Kentucky’s strength this year, they could very well be due for a championship.

Player-inspired names

Bring Out the Broomes − Johni Broome has been arguably the best player in the toughest conference, so if you’re backing Auburn and plan to sweep up the competition, this is the name for you.
Run It Up The Flagg Pole − Although Flagg’s status for Duke’s first March Madness game is still up in the air, he’s an undeniable talent that no one would mock you for basing your bracket around.

March Madness lore-inspired names

Sister Jean Blessed this Bracket − In remembrance of one of the greatest Cinderella runs of all-time, a blessing from Sister Jean would almost certainly win you your pool
Striking Gohlke − Just last year, Jack Gohlke stunned basketball fans leading Oakland to a win over Kentucky in the opening round. If they can win against impossible odds, your bracket can do well too.
UMBC You Later − UMBC was the first No. 16 seed to ever take down a No. 1 seed. This bracket name lets your colleagues know that you’re rooting for chaos.

The king of self promotion just did something for the good of the whole, throwing out a line of succulent bait for all to nibble. 

Now let’s see who bites.

Let’s see which universities see Colorado coach Deion Sanders’ invite to come to Boulder, Co., and play a “spring game” agains the Buffs as more than hyperbole from college football’s masterful carnival barker.

Which see it as blazing down the path to a fresh future, not rehashing or reorganizing the past.

Hours after Sanders’ spring practice game statement during Monday’s press conference, Syracuse coach Fran Brown responded on X, posting that he’d like to take his team to Colorado for a spring game. A few joint practices, too. 

You know, the whole NFL training camp model thing. 

But it’s not up to Brown or Sanders or North Carolina coach Bill Belichick, who Sanders wants to see on the other sideline this spring. The highest-paid employees at their respective schools have no control over this. 

The heavy hand of It’s Not Happening belongs to – who else? – the NCAA.  

The NCAA says teams cannot play each other in the spring. Not a commissioner at the top of the NCAA food chain, who could individually make nuanced decisions. Not an end-all, be-all deity doling out dos an don’ts.

That would make too much sense.   

SPRING POWER RANKINGS: Big Ten | SEC | ACC | Big 12

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But 300-plus universities who make up the NCAA, who have glommed together in planned purpose, through various committees and subcommittees, to decide the specifics of every sport. Then placing president Charlie Baker out in front, with a hefty contract, to take the slings and arrows. And giving him zero power.

It couldn’t be more bureaucratically entangled if it were run by the federal government. 

Colorado and Syracuse simply can’t have joint practices, and then a controlled scrimmage. Why, you ask? 

Well there’s airfare for players to Colorado, and who pays for that? There’s also lodging and housing and meals, and who pays for those?

Then there’s insurance waivers, because, buddy, this thing isn’t insured for spring football — even though the Big Ten spent months in 2020 trying to convince anyone who would listen that teams could play spring football in 2021 instead of forging through the Covid season.

The Big Ten also – just in case anyone forgot – floated the idea of its teams playing two seasons in nine months to avoid playing in 2020. Now, that can be pulled off ― in the middle of a flipping pandemic. 

But two teams getting together for a week, holding a few joint practices and playing a controlled scrimmage spring game? Heavens, no.

Why? Because they’re all about rules at the NCAA — except for rules against member institutions tampering with players from other schools. 

And that’s how we got into this mess in the first place.

“The way the train is going,” Sanders said, “You never know if this is going to be the last spring game.”

That train gained momentum earlier this spring when Nebraska coach Matt Rhule declared he wouldn’t have a spring game because he didn’t want every swinging scout from FBS schools watching his game — and seeing what players were prime for the transfer portal picking. 

Translation: the tampering problem the NCAA refuses to honestly discuss, much less include in rules enforcement.

NCAA bylaw 13.1.1.3 prohibits any communication with an enrolled student athlete before they enter the transfer portal. Violations can result in penalties, including recruiting bans and loss of scholarships. 

The joke goes something like this: the NCAA was so mad about tampering in FBS, it threw the book at an FCS school. If you think that’s a joke, let me introduce Southern Utah.

The Thunderbirds (best mascot, ever) were in the NCAA crosshairs because coach DeLane Fitzgerald was accused of illegally contacting two players. Southern Utah was given one year of probation and a $5,000 fine, among other slaps on the wrist. 

To this day, no FBS coach has been accused and sanctioned for tampering. 

So it should come as no surprise that after Nebraska bailed on its spring game, Texas soon followed. So did Ohio State and Southern California and LSU and Oklahoma … and stop me if you don’t get the picture. 

All of them, and many others in FBS, have either eliminated spring games or substituted another form of practice to wrap up spring drills.

“Those other coaches who want to come watch our spring game, they’re going to get a good look at our threes and fours,” West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez told me last week. “We won’t have our best out there. (Coaches are) going to have to go way down the list to find out who these guys are.”

Or, and I’m just spitballing here, power conferences desperate for additional revenue streams could televise the joint practices and controlled scrimmages and make a boatload of media rights money. Take the NFL model ― and cash in on it.

“I think the public would be satisfied with that tremendously,” Sanders said. 

That would make too much sense.

Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.

During Wednesday’s Dodgers-Cubs game at the Tokyo Dome, Los Angeles third baseman Max Muncy reached over the netting to try catching a foul ball, but it landed in the glove of a spectator instead.

That fan? Former NFL quarterback Rodney Peete.

Peete, whose son RJ is a clubhouse attendant for the Dodgers, coolly made the grab in the stands – while Muncy was frustrated he couldn’t secure the catch. Replays showed that the ball had missed Muncy’s glove before Peete made the play.

Peete played in the NFL from 1989 to 2004 with the Lions, Cowboys, Eagles, Washington, Raiders and Panthers. A multi-sport athlete in high school and college at Southern California, Peete was selected in the Major League Baseball draft four times (1984, 1988, 1989 and 1990) but chose to stick with football.

Peete’s wife Holly Robinson-Peete, an actress and singer, took to Instagram to share video of the encounter and apologize to Muncy, noting that the foul ball ‘was coming straight for my head!’

Peete, who also works for the Dodgers’ radio station AM 570 LA, said fans in the area he was seated were given gloves and helmets because of the low netting.

The Dodgers won the game 6-3, taking both contests against the Cubs in Tokyo to open the 2025 MLB season.

This story was updated to include new information.

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McNeese State coach Will Wade has reached an agreement to be hired as the next coach at North Carolina State, according to multiple reports on Wednesday, returning to the power conference level three years after his tenure at LSU ended with NCAA violations and a show-cause penalty.

Wade is expected to accept his new ACC job after McNeese State’s postseason run is complete. No. 12 seed McNeese faces No. 5 seed Clemson in a Midwest Region first-round game to start the 2025 NCAA Tournament. It’s the second year in a row Wade led the Cowboys to the Southland Conference championship and a spot in March Madness.

Wade, 42, confirmed during a news conference Wednesday in Providence, Rhode Island ahead of McNeese’s game against Clemson that he had spoken with North Carolina State officials since the Wolfpack announced they had fired former coach Kevin Keatts.

Wade had a fast rise up the coaching ladder to start his career, first as an assistant coach at VCU during its Final Four run under Shaka Smart and later as a head coach at Chattanooga, VCU and then LSU. Wade had a 105-51 record over five seasons at LSU, making the NCAA Tournament every year after his opening campaign in 2017-18. The Tigers won the SEC and went to the Sweet 16 under Wade in 2019, but he was suspended for the final five games of the season.

Wade eventually agreed to modifications in his contract and continued as LSU’s coach for three more seasons while an investigation into the program continued. Wade was fired by LSU following the 2021-22 season after the school received a notice of allegations from the NCAA that detailed Wade’s alleged conduct offering financial inducements to players as ‘deliberate and committed after substantial planning.’

After sitting out a season, Wade was hired by McNeese State in March 2023 and retained three months later when he was given a 10-game suspension and two-year show-cause penalty by the NCAA’s now-defunct Independent Accountability Resolution Process. Wade has a 49-8 record during his two seasons at the Lake Charles, Louisiana school.

Keatts led North Carolina State to the Final Four in 2024 after making the NCAA Tournament as one of the final at-large teams. He was rewarded with a contract extension, but the Wolfpack couldn’t follow up that success this season. They finished with a 12-19 record and failed to qualify for the ACC tournament after a 16th-place finish in league play.