2026 Anonymously Through The Brackets: East Region
· Yahoo Sports
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.
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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.
GUTLESS WONDER Pick To Win The Region
The East Region gives us the Gutless Wonder pick to end all picks because not only is Duke the #1 seed in the region, but they’re also the #1 overall seed for the entire tournament. No one truly enjoys picking Duke to win anything in March other than people who actually have Duke degrees on hanging on their wall, even if Cameron Boozer has been the most consistent of the tippy-top freshmen stars this season. Picking Duke is like starting a band and naming it Rage For The Machine. Zero fun and you look like a goof doing it, too. But #1 seed is #1 seed, so there you go.
CHEX BOLD PARTY MIX Bold Pick To Win The Region
Here’s an opportunity you don’t get very often: The #5 seed in this region just beat the #2 seed in this region by 20 points on Saturday night. That’s St. John’s with the win over UConn in the Big East championship game, and Rick Pitino’s Red Storm have lost just one game since January 4th. 19-1! They’re probably a tad underseeded since 8/11ths of the Big East was Not Good this season, so go ahead and back Zuby Ejiofor to guide the Johnnies to the Final Four for the first time since 1985.
Oh, their one loss in their last 20 games? Oh, uh, let’s see…… oh, it was to UConn by 32. It’s a Bold Pick for a reason!
CRUSH YOUR MAN Upset Special
If there’s one thing that UCLA head coach Mick Cronin loves, it’s basketball. If there’s two things that Mick Cronin loves, it’s basketball and complaining about anything that subjects him to the slightest amount of discomfort. Last season, Cronin complained about his team’s travel schedule causing them to see the Statue of Liberty twice in three weeks and also the U.S. Capitol building on a different trip and then threw a cheap shot in at being forced to go to Indianapolis for the conference tournament.
This year, UCLA didn’t leave the state of California until December and didn’t leave the Pacific Time Zone until being forced to go to a road game against Iowa by the Big Ten schedule on January 3rd. As the #7 seed in this region, Cronin — who did not sign up for the Big Ten conference affiliation when he took this job in 2019 — and his Bruins are being shipped out to Philadelphia for a first round game against #10 seed UCF.
Don’t you want to be able to giggle about Mick Cronin’s post-loss meltdown about his team’s travel while also counting UCF’s win in your bracket pool?
Player I’d Pay To Watch
Michigan State’s Jeremy Fears is #6 in the country in the KenPom.com National Player of the Year rankings and he’s #1 in the country in assist rate. He is a double-double threat on points (team high 15.7 ppg) and assists (best in the country 9.2 apg), and that might be enough to get him to occupy this spot alone.
There’s also the possibility that Fears gets assessed multiple technical or flagrant fouls because of dirty play. He had four outlandish plays against Minnesota alone back on February 4th, including mule kicking an opponent in the groin. AND THEN HE DID THE MULE KICK AGAINagainst Michigan on March 8th.
I’m not saying that these are good things that should be in a basketball game. But if I can put money in a cashier’s hand and have the chance to see a guy with a double-double get thrown out of the game for a Ric Flair impression? SOLD.
The Chiropractor Special: aka Who Can Put The Team On His Back?
On the final day of the regular season, Ohio State’s Bruce Thornton became the Buckeyes’ all-time leading scorer.
He is leading the team in scoring this year at over 20 points a game, he shoots 40% on threes, he shoots 83% at the free throw line, he grabs five rebounds a game, he leads the Buckeyes in assists and steals per game. If they win the 8/9 game against TCU, it will be because Bruce Thornton has made the most of his first ever NCAA tournament game. If they pull the upset against a shorthanded #1 seeded Duke in the second round and get to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2013, it will be because Bruce Thornton has said “hop on board, gentlemen,” and takes them there.
Best Guy You’ve Never Heard Of
There were two great options here with the #11 and #13 seeds sporting their league’s Player of the Year. All due respect to USF’s Izaiyah Nelson and the Bulls getting to the tournament for the first time since 2012, but I’m going over to Cal Baptist and Dominique Daniels. The 5’10” guard from Compton was the best player in the WAC this season, leading the league in scoring at over 23 points per game. He is not an electrifying shooter at just 32.4% from behind the arc and an effective field goal percentage of just under 50% against Division 1 competition. But the Lancers are 25-8 and on a six game winning streak coming into the NCAA tournament, and Daniels has been the KenPom.com MVP in nine of their wins as they went 15-2 down the stretch. That includes both of their WAC tournament games, where he put up 41 points in the semifinals to push Cal Baptist to the program’s first ever NCAA bid in their eight years in Division 1.
Wouldn’t it be fun to watch a tiny guard cook Kansas out of the bracket?
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