No. 11 Texas upsets No. 3 Gonzaga in 2026 NCAA Tournament Round of 32

Texas knocked out Gonzaga in the Round of 32 on Sunday, pulling off one of the cleaner upsets of the 2026 NCAA Tournament and sending one of college basketball's most consistently elite programs home before the Sweet Sixteen. The Longhorns, seeded eleventh, beat the Bulldogs, seeded third, in a game that was not particularly close in the final stretch. Gonzaga's tournament run ends without a Final Four appearance for the third consecutive year, a stretch that would have been unthinkable for this program a decade ago.

Texas advances to the Sweet Sixteen for the second time in three years under head coach Rodney Terry, who took over the program in December 2022 following Chris Beard's dismissal and has steadily built a team capable of competing against elite competition in March. The Longhorns' roster is not built around a single star, which is part of what made them difficult for Gonzaga to game-plan against. Five Texas players finished in double figures Sunday, with guard Tre Johnson leading the team with 22 points on 8-of-14 shooting.

How the game unfolded

Gonzaga led by six at halftime and looked like the better team through the first twenty minutes, with forward Graham Ike controlling the paint and the Bulldogs converting at a 54% clip from two-point range. Texas adjusted defensively in the second half, switching to a zone that disrupted Gonzaga's standard ball movement and forced three consecutive shot clock violations between the 15 and 12 minute marks. That six-minute stretch without a made field goal for the Bulldogs turned a six-point halftime deficit into a four-point Texas lead, and Gonzaga never fully recovered the offensive rhythm they had in the first half.

Gonzaga guard Ryan Nembhard, who entered the game averaging 18.4 points per game in tournament play over his career, finished with 14 points on 4-of-14 shooting. Texas's defensive scheme kept him out of his preferred spots on the right side of the floor and forced him into two uncharacteristic turnovers in the final six minutes when the Bulldogs were trying to cut the deficit. Those turnovers converted directly into Texas fastbreak points, which pushed the final margin to eight.

Gonzaga's exit and what it means for their program

Gonzaga has now failed to reach the Final Four in three straight tournaments, a drought that stands out because the Bulldogs reached the national championship game in both 2017 and 2021 and made the Final Four in 2019. Head coach Mark Few's program has been among the five most consistently successful in college basketball over the past 25 years, with 26 consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances entering this season. But the West Coast Conference has become less competitive at the top, which some analysts argue has left Gonzaga underseasoned for the physical defensive pressure teams like Texas apply in March.

Gonzaga's best player this season, forward Braden Huff, was limited to 17 minutes Sunday due to foul trouble. He picked up his second foul with 14 minutes left in the first half and spent most of the game sitting next to Few on the bench trying to stay in the game. Huff finished with 9 points, well below his season average of 16.8. Whether that changes how much blame falls on the game plan versus the lineup forced by foul trouble is the central debate among Gonzaga fans and analysts tonight.

The broader upset pattern in this tournament

The 2026 NCAA Tournament has been particularly unkind to top seeds and high-profile programs in the first two rounds. Before Sunday, five teams seeded sixth or higher had already beaten teams seeded fourth or better in the Round of 64. That is the highest number of such upsets through the first two rounds since 2021, when Oral Roberts reached the Elite Eight as a 15-seed. The bracket as it stands heading into the Sweet Sixteen has at least three double-digit seeds still alive, which is producing the kind of chaos that makes the tournament genuinely unpredictable in ways that pre-tournament projections consistently underestimate.

The upset rate in Round of 32 games historically runs at about 27% for double-digit seeds playing top-four seeds, meaning approximately one in four such games produces a result like Sunday's Texas win. This tournament is running well above that historical average through the second round, which will make the Sweet Sixteen matchups harder to predict than a normal bracket would suggest.

Texas's path forward in the Sweet Sixteen

Texas will face the winner of Sunday evening's game between No. 6 seed Creighton and No. 14 seed Vermont in the Sweet Sixteen, which is scheduled for Thursday, March 26 in Kansas City at T-Mobile Center. If Vermont wins and Texas faces a 14-seed in the Sweet Sixteen, the Longhorns would enter that game as substantial favorites despite their 11-seed status, given that 11-over-14 Sweet Sixteen matchups are relatively rare and tend to favor the 11-seed's tournament experience at that stage.

Coach Rodney Terry's post-game press conference Sunday was brief. He credited his team's second-half defensive adjustment and specifically called out the performances of guard Tre Johnson and center Ze'Rik Onyema, who held Gonzaga's interior to six second-half points on Sunday. Texas's next practice session is scheduled for Tuesday in Kansas City as they prepare for the Sweet Sixteen on Thursday.