4/7/26

It was another year with fewer upsets than usual but that didn’t take away from the drama of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament or the 3rd Edition of Professor DW’s Bracket Challenge. Perennial contender UConn made their way to yet another National Championship game, their third in the last four seasons. Michigan seemed like the best team all tournament long and proved to be just that, winning the title game over UConn 69-63 to win their second National Championship game, the first since 1989.

There are some contestants that will have some regrets as the top two finishers did not fill out the required entry form, despite the extra reminder and extended deadline which meant that it was the lucky day for our third-place finisher. That would be Myles Feltman who ends up as the overall winner of DW’s Bracket Challenge. He finished with a total of 1,410 points which was well below the 1,710 that took home the title last year. It was a down year across the board, but Myles did enough to earn this year’s title.

Myles correctly picked 5 out of the 8 teams to make it to the Elite Eight and 3 out of the 4 semifinalists. He did not have UConn in the title game but did have Michigan winning it all which gave him the big boost to earn the tight win. Myles did not have any Cinderella runs in his bracket but outside of Iowa getting to the Elite Eight, there weren’t many underdog stories for the second consecutive year which might become the norm for the future.

Nobody to finish in the top 10 picked another team other than Michigan to win it all. They were the popular pick in this year’s contest, narrowly beating out Duke and Arizona for that title. The highest placed finisher to not pick Michigan was Ali Ahamed who would have stolen the win if UConn would have earned the win last night which was their National Champion pick. Only two chose UConn to win it all as the other was Clifford Nichols who would have also cracked the top 10. UConn took out Duke in the Elite Eight while the other popular choice in Arizona fell to Michigan in the Final Four.

All winners will be receiving emails on how to collect their winnings. Thank you all for playing along in the third bracket challenge and we hope to see you all back in 2027 for the next edition of Professor DW’s Bracket Challenge. Also, be sure to keep your eyes peeled for the next Professor DW contest coming up in May.

Leaderboard (National Champions in Parentheses)
Myles Feltman 1410 Points  ($250)
Chris Barnes 1400 Points ($100)
Brady Haggerty 1390 Points ($25)
Brian Gladney 1390 Points ($25)
Kayla Handy 1370 Points ($25)
Wes Cameron 1340 Points ($25)
Matt Turner 1300 Points ($25)
Michael Mankus 1300 Points ($25)
Jeff Mohoric 1290 Points ($25)
Josh Kaiser 1260 Points ($25)

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