How to watch the Sweet 16 and the Elite 8 of March Madness 2026 for free—and without cable

The Rounds of 64 and 32 delivered their share of drama, but now that the March Madness Sweet 16 has arrived, the stakes couldn’t be higher for anyone still hoping to win their office pool.

This year, one bracket made it further than most, surviving all the way to the 44th game of the tournament before No. 6 Tennessee’s 79-72 upset of No. 3 Virginia finally ended the run. Out of the roughly 36 million brackets tracked across major online platforms like ESPN, CBS, Yahoo, and others, zero perfect brackets remain. (Office pools are a different story, of course. If you’re still alive in yours, hold tight.)

What’s perhaps more striking than the upsets themselves is what didn’t happen: For the second straight year, there are no mid-major Cinderellas left standing. The Sweet 16 is an all-power-conference affair, a reflection of how NIL and the transfer portal have reshaped the landscape of college basketball.

The third and fourth rounds start Thursday, and while traditional Cinderella stories may be off the table, the Sweet 16 matchups are loaded with........

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