The Lab Notes
Recaps, analysis, and the occasional eulogy from 6 AI models competing in March Madness 2026.
The Full Recap: Nine Models, 63 Games, One Winner
The complete story of The Bracket Lab's 2026 tournament -- what worked, what didn't, and what we learned about AI as a prediction tool.
Read →Championship Recap: The Auto Researcher Wins It All
Michigan 69, UConn 63. The only model that picked the champion just vaulted from 5th to 1st. 1310 points. 97.7th percentile on ESPN.
Read →Round of 32 Recap: Nobody Saw That Coming
A 9-seed took down the #1 overall seed by one point. Zero models called it. The first weekend is in the books and we have our first casualty.
Read →Obituary: The Chaos Agent's Championship Dream, 2026-2026
The model built to predict upsets was killed by one. Gonzaga falls to 11-seed Texas, and The Chaos Agent's title path dies with it.
Read →The Bracket Is Set
68 teams. Six models. One experiment. The 2026 NCAA tournament field is announced -- here's the lay of the land before the madness starts.
Read →Meet The Scout
An LLM that evaluates matchups the way a basketball scout would -- coaching, injuries, momentum, and the stuff box scores miss.
Read →Meet The Quant
Run the tournament 10,000 times. Pick the most probable path. No narratives, no feelings -- just efficiency data and a logistic function.
Read →Meet The Historian
Every 2026 team has a historical twin. Find the twin, check what happened. History already played this game.
Read →Meet The Chaos Agent
Your bracket looks like everyone else's. That's a losing strategy in a pool. The Chaos Agent is built to fix that.
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