March in the South feels a little different when you care about basketball now, doesn’t it? Ten years ago most folks around here were talking spring football depth charts by the time the azaleas bloomed, but Bruce Pearl and this SEC hoops renaissance have turned March into a second Christmas. With Selection Sunday landing on March 15 this year, your group text is about to fire up with that same old question: “Who’s running the bracket pool?” So let’s walk through how to set up a 2026 March Madness pool the right way, without overcomplicating it, and with both the men’s and women’s tournaments getting the respect they deserve. You don’t need a tech degree or a Vegas bankroll to do it—just a few minutes, a CBS Sports account, and maybe a little competitive trash talk.

First things first: where do you actually host this thing? CBS Sports has made itself a pretty easy home base for 2026 NCAA Tournament bracket games, and I say that as somebody who still remembers printing off brackets in the church office between Sunday School and service. You can fire up free Men’s and Women’s Bracket Games in the CBS Sports App or on CBSSports.com, jump into national Bracket Challenges for prizes, or just keep it local with your friends, family, and that one guy in the office who claims he “doesn’t even watch college basketball” and still somehow wins every year. The key word here is free—no need to turn this into a shady backroom operation; just set up your pool, pick your rules, and let everybody chase bragging rights. For 2026, CBS is also dangling trips to both the men’s and women’s 2027 Final Fours, which is a pretty good excuse to take your bracket a little more seriously than “auto-fill and pray.”

Running a men’s bracket pool on CBS is simple enough that even your uncle who still calls it "the Facebook" can manage it. You start at the Create Men’s Bracket Pool page, name your group—pro tip: keep it PG if you’ve got church friends in there—then choose if the pool is locked or open. Locked means you control the invites, which is ideal for family or office pools; open means anybody with the link can jump in, handy for big friend groups or alumni networks. Once you’ve picked your setup, you confirm the scoring rules, hit save, and either copy your pool link or let CBS handle invites by email. After that, all that’s left on the men’s side is to have folks get their brackets filled in before the deadline when first round action tips March 19.

The women’s side works the exact same way, which is exactly how it should be. Head over to the Create Women’s Bracket Pool page, spin up your group, set the rules, and send out invites. If you’re not running a women’s pool alongside your men’s pool in 2026, you’re missing half the fun—and half the story of where college hoops is headed. The women’s Selection Show hits at 8 p.m. ET on March 15, and the bracket locks when first round play starts March 20, so your crew gets an extra day to talk themselves into that 12-seed that “just feels right.” And if you’re really trying to keep things even, mirror the scoring rules you’re using on the men’s side so people treat both with the same level of attention.

Now, if you want to chase those big CBS Sports prizes on top of local bragging rights, there are national Bracket Challenges for both tournaments. On the men’s side, you click through to the CBS Sports 2026 Men’s Challenge, hit "Join Now," and then either build a fresh bracket after the Selection Sunday reveal or just import one you already filled out for your private pools. Same idea for the women’s Bracket Challenge: once that bracket is revealed after the Selection Show, you can fill it out directly or import from a women’s pool you’re already in. Every valid entry gives you a shot at a trip to the 2027 Final Four—no purchase necessary, just read the rules and make sure you’re in before each tournament tips. Think of your private pools as the backyard grill and the Bracket Challenges as the big church picnic: different scale, same spirit, and you’re welcome at both.

Of course, part of the joy in running a pool is pretending you’re a bracketologist for a couple of weeks, so let’s talk teams without turning this into a gambling sermon. On the men’s side, the early buzz is around programs like Michigan, Duke, Arizona and Iowa State as potential No. 1 seeds, with recent powers like UConn, Houston and Florida lurking right behind. Kansas is your classic high-ceiling, high-drama outfit: they came into the weekend hot, having taken nine of ten, then promptly got stunned at home by double-digit underdog Cincinnati. Freshman Darryn Peterson can take over a game when he’s right, but his minor injuries and cramping issues mean they’re as capable of a deep run as they are of busting everyone’s bracket by Saturday night. Then there’s Duke, rolling into late February at 24-2 behind superstar freshman Cameron Boozer, who’s casually putting up 22.8 points, 10 boards, and nearly four assists a night after Jon Scheyer had to replace his entire starting five from last year’s Final Four team.

On the women’s side, if your bracket doesn’t spend some ink on UCLA and Vanderbilt, you’re not doing your homework. UCLA finally broke through to its first Final Four last season, and Cori Chase has the Bruins sitting at 26-1 with a spotless 16-0 mark in the Big Ten. They’re anchored by center Lauren Betts, who is doing a little bit of everything—scoring, rebounding, passing, and blocking shots—while leading a veteran group whose top six scorers are all seniors. That kind of age and cohesion travels well in March, and it’s exactly the sort of profile that keeps you alive when everybody else’s freshman-heavy darlings get tight. Then there’s Vanderbilt, which has quietly turned smart NIL work into a real shot at a women’s national title: the Commodores are 24-3, top-five in the AP poll, and riding sophomore bucket-getter Mikayla Blakes, who is putting up 25.9 points a game and giving the SEC another national-stage threat.

If you’re the commissioner of your friend group’s pool, set clear expectations up front so you’re not fielding panicked texts five minutes before tip. Decide whether you’re limiting entries to one bracket per person or letting folks fire multiple shots, and make sure everybody knows the scoring system—especially how many points you’re giving later rounds compared to early upsets. Keep your rules simple; you don’t need bonus points for correctly guessing the mascot’s shoe size. If there’s money involved, keep it legal and low-key, and if there’s not, lean into creative prizes: winner gets a trophy, loser has to wear rival gear to the next cookout, that kind of thing. Most importantly, use the pool as an excuse to bring people together for watch parties, food, and friendly jawing—because the games are better when you’ve got somebody to celebrate or commiserate with.

From an SEC vantage point, what’s fun about 2026 is how different the conversation feels compared to a decade ago. You still hear the usual bluebloods—Duke, Kansas, UConn—but now you’re also talking about SEC brands making noise on both the men’s and women’s sides, from Florida’s recent runs to Vanderbilt’s women's surge. If you’re an Auburn fan like me, you remember when our 2019 Final Four run felt like a once-in-a-lifetime lightning strike, but the way the league has invested in coaches, facilities, and recruiting, it’s starting to feel like the SEC belongs in every March Madness pool conversation. That doesn’t mean you should homer your bracket—“Auburn to the title” might be good for the soul, not the standings—but it does mean understanding that the power map in college hoops is changing. Use your pool as a way to track that shift: make people pick at least one SEC team to hit the second weekend and see who really believes in the league’s rise.

At the end of the day, running a 2026 March Madness pool isn’t about proving you’re smarter than Vegas or nailing the perfect bracket—nobody does that, and if they tell you they did, they probably also “almost walked on” somewhere. It’s about giving your family, friends, church group, or office crew a reason to care about Furman versus Iowa State on a Thursday afternoon. So hop into the CBS Sports bracket lobby, spin up men’s and women’s pools, send out those invites, and circle March 15, 19, and 20 on the calendar so you don’t miss your deadlines. Fill out your bracket with your head, your heart, or a coin flip if you have to, but fill it out. Because when March rolls around in SEC country these days, we don’t just talk about spring practice—we clear our schedules for tipoff, and we let the Madness do the preaching.