College football season is just getting started, which means the 2026 March Madness tournaments are still months away, but ESPN college basketball analyst Joe Lunardi doesn’t rest.
Lunardi’s latest 2026 Men’s Bracketology, released Tuesday, predicted Mick Cronin’s UCLA Bruins to take a No. 4 seed in the South Region. The Bruins were ranked No. 15 on ESPN’s most recent men’s college basketball early top 25 list, released Aug. 5.
“And UCLA, Illinois and Michigan State could legitimately play in April,” Lunardi wrote in the bracketology’s short introduction.
The Bruins are one of 11 Big Ten Conference teams in Lunardi’s latest tournament prediction. Other 4-seeds in the Aug. 26 bracket were Arkansas, Illinois and Auburn. A No. 7 seeded UCLA fell in the second round of last year’s March Madness Tournament to No. 2 Tennessee, 67-58.
Full college basketball schedules for this season have yet to be announced, but UCLA currently has 11 non-conference games on the books, with just one road contest against Gonzaga Dec. 13. The Bruins will host Eastern Washington, Pepperdine, West Georgia, Arizona, Sacramento State, Presbyterian, California Berkeley, Arizona State, Cal Poly and UC Riverside.
In addition to those 11 contests, UCLA is expected to play 20 Big Ten games, per Monday’s press release.
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Cronin’s squad posted a 23-11 (13-7 Big Ten) record last season. The Bruins finished fourth in the conference behind Michigan State, Maryland, Michigan and Purdue, though they had the same Big Ten record as both Purdue and Wisconsin.
