76 college basketball predictions: Who will surprise, who will disappoint and who will win it all
(Joseph Raines/Yahoo Sports illustration)
The men's college basketball season tips off Sunday in Rome, Italy, when Villanova faces Notre Dame in a matchup pitting Pope Leo XIV's alma mater against a fellow Catholic power. To celebrate the start of the new season, here are 68 76 predictions sure to come true (unless they don't).
1. This will be college basketball's year of the asterisk. For months, opportunistic coaches have challenged the NCAA's ability to enforce its own eligibility rules in court by targeting players who don't fit the traditional college model — overseas pros, G league veterans, players once thought to have exhausted their college eligibility. Programs in the hunt for the national title will face questions about the fairness of the race and the legitimacy of their rosters. The team that cuts down the nets may be the one that navigates the legal system best.
2. Team whose outlook depends most on the outcome of eligibility battles with the NCAA: Kansas. Bill Self bolstered an underwhelming roster by adding three projected starters in the past month, including 24-year-old sixth-year senior Trey Kaufman-Renn, a second-round draft pick of the Minnesota Timberwolves this past June. The Jayhawks would vault from fringe Top 25 team to national title contender if Kaufman-Renn, Melvin Council, 24, and Tre White, 23, all win their legal fights for an extra season of eligibility.
3. Most impactful ACC eligibility cases: Seth Trimble (Louisville), Malik Reneau (Miami)
4. Most impactful Big East eligibility cases: Keyshawn Hall and Babacar Sane (St. John's), Filip Borovicanin (Xavier), Vince Iwuchukwu (Georgetown)
5. Most impactful Big Ten eligibility cases: Roddy Gayle (Michigan), Cade Tyson (Minnesota)
6. Most impactful Big 12 eligibility cases: Tamin Lipsey (Iowa State), RJ Godfrey (Arizona), Jaxon Kohler (BYU), Darrion Williams and Jamichael Stillwell (Texas Tech), MJ Collins (Cincinnati), Council, White and Kaufman-Renn (Kansas)
7. Most impactful SEC eligibility cases: Donovan Dent and Skyy Clark (LSU), Denzel Aberdeen (Florida), Mark Mitchell (Missouri)
8. Other eligibility cases that matter: Robbie Avila (Saint Louis), Xaivian Lee and Javon Bennett (Gonzaga), Jaden Henley (Grand Canyon)
9. The legal wrangling won't stop once the regular season begins. Expect fifth-year players to gain or lose eligibility throughout the winter as litigation progresses or appeals are heard. And expect teams to try to plug roster holes with players facing eligibility questions at the semester break.
10. Team outside the AP preseason Top 25 who could surprise: Indiana. Only two rotation players return from the team that won a modest 18 games in Darren DeVries' debut season, but Indiana has reloaded via a spending spree in the transfer portal. Between Markus Burton's creativity off the dribble, Aiden Sherrell's combination of size and skill and a deep supporting cast, the Hoosiers have second-weekend NCAA tournament potential.
11. Preseason Top 25 team who could disappoint: USC.The Trojans are loaded with individual talent, but the pieces don't seem to fit together in a way that makes sense. Will Eric Musselman be able to define roles and get players to sacrifice when so many are used to having the ball in their hands? The other concern is the status of two key players. Promising 7-foot UConn transfer Eric Reibe has yet to play after undergoing offseason foot surgery, nor has top recruit Christian Collins for undisclosed reasons.
12. Reigning national champion Michigan can still challenge for a top-four Big Ten finish even after losing head coach Dusty May and three lottery picks from last season — and then losing top recruit Brandon McCoy to a season-ending knee injury in late August. Elliot Cadeau is a top-five point guard in college basketball, Trey McKenney is an obvious breakout candidate and the frontcourt handpicked by May out of the transfer portal is intriguing. This is still a very good roster, just not a historically great one.
13. Football schools that will have more success on the hardwood this season: Florida, Michigan, USC
14. Basketball schools that will have more success on the gridiron this season: Indiana, UCLA, Wake Forest
15. School that will be putrid in both: Sorry, Penn State.
16. The NCAA tournament expansion that no one asked for will still be wildly unpopular after the inaugural edition. Expanding the field from 68 teams to 76 damages sporting perfection so that the power conferences can gain a little extra TV money and send a few more middling teams to March Madness. If anything, 68 was four teams too many.
17. The biggest complaint will be that 76 teams further devalues college basketball's regular season by lowering the bar for power-conference teams to earn a NCAA tournament berth and reducing the consequences of losses. Get ready for a field that includes multiple 15-loss teams from power conferences and for the 11th-place teams from the SEC and Big Ten to make it in with ease.
18. If you ignored the First Four — and most of you did — you'll continue to ignore the new play-in games. Most bracket challenges organized by major media outlets will still begin the Thursday morning after Selection Sunday when the field has shrunk to 64 teams. That's when the mainstream audience will tune in.
19. The opening Thursday and Friday of the NCAA tournament will remain pseudo national holidays. Try as they might, Greg Sankey and fellow greedy power-conference commissioners can't mess that up.
Mark Pope is 46-26 in his two seasons leading Kentucky, but he's yet to finish better than sixth in the SEC.
20. Mark Pope needs better results to remain at Kentucky. In his first two seasons as head coach at Kentucky, Pope has not finished higher than sixth in the SEC, nor has he advanced beyond the Sweet 16. At least one of those two things must change for Pope to keep his job beyond this season. Tradition-rich Kentucky is spending too much on its roster to have patience much longer
21. The addition of prized Iowa State transfer Milan Momcilovich gives Pope hope of the type of confidence-boosting season he needs to restore faith. The 6-foot-9 stretch forward made 48.6% of his 280 3-point attempts last season with the Cyclones. Pope needs Momcilovich to pick up where he left off and a couple of the talented but unproven players around him — Malachi Moreno? Alex Wilkins? Kam Williams? — to produce breakout seasons.
22. Exhibition losses that could be a sign of things to come: Xavier 86, Tennessee 70 and Duke 103, Tennessee 64. Two dreadful performances in a span of five days have Vols fans questioning whether this team can live up to the standard Rick Barnes has set. Barnes may eventually unlock the potential of a decorated transfer class, find a capable interior presence and coax his team into defending and rebounding, but right now Tennessee is nowhere close to the eighth best team in America.
23. Exhibition losses that are more fluke than omen: UConn 78, Michigan State 70 and Marquette 86, Michigan State 79. The center position, as Dan Hurley so bluntly pointed out, is an issue for the Spartans, especially with newcomer Anton Bonke failing to inspire confidence in his debut. Still, the Spartans' perimeter corps is loaded and point guard Jeremy Fears will play better than he did in these games.
24. He may only be 17 years old, but Duke's Joaquim Boumtje Boumtje is going to make a panel of media voters look silly for not including him on the preseason all-ACC first team — and barely finding room for him on the second team! The potential No. 1 pick in the 2028 NBA Draft is an unusually skilled 7-footer who excels at knocking down threes, facilitating from the high post or defending multiple positions. He was the MVP of the gold medal-winning U.S. team at this past summer's U-17 World Championships.
25. Dan Hurley will continue to fool opposing fans into thinking he's a jerk when in reality he just plays one on TV. Behind the sideline antics and ref berating is a good-hearted, thoughtful, self-aware coach whose players swear by him.
26. It used to be that newly hired coaches could count on administrators giving them four-plus years to turn around struggling programs. Not anymore. The transfer portal has made it possible to revitalize a talent-bereft roster in a single offseason. As a result, more coaches will lose their jobs after just two or three seasons if they aren't showing progress. Just look at last year's cycle, when Providence ousted onetime rising star Kim English after just three seasons and Syracuse did the same with alum Adrian Autry.
27. The coach under the most pressure to win to save his job this year is Pittsburgh's Jeff Capel. After Capel's Panthers lost 20 games and missed the NCAA tournament for the seventh time in his up-and-down eight seasons, athletic director Allen Greene had to announce that Capel would return for a ninth campaign — never a good sign for a coach's future. The Panthers landed an intriguing 11-man transfer class highlighted by Baye Ndongo and former McDonald's All-American Jalil Bethea, but they were projected to finish just 13th in the ACC preseason poll. Capel will need to exceed that to keep donors from raising money to pay for his buyout.
28. Other coaches whose jobs will be in jeopardy if they don't win this season: Memphis' Penny Hardaway, Kentucky's Mark Pope, South Carolina's Lamont Paris, Wake Forest's Steve Forbes, Washington's Danny Sprinkle, Penn State's Mike Rhoades
29. Coaches facing prove-it seasons as they try to earn the full-time gig: Oregon interim coach Tony Stubblefield and Michigan's Mike Boynton, who formally shed the interim label when he received a two-year contract in July.
30. Will Wade will keep testing the NCAA's ability to enforce its own rules as he essentially tries to assemble a professional roster to play college basketball. This offseason, Wade targeted 23-and-over college players seeking a fifth season of eligibility and 23-and-over overseas pros who have played in some of the top leagues around the world. He even explored the possibility of rostering former St. John's standout RJ Luis, who entered the 2025 NBA Draft after his junior season and signed two-way contracts with the Utah Jazz and Boston Celtics.
31. There's a reason LeBron James has laughed at the idea of delaying retirement long enough to wait for his younger son to join him in the NBA. Arizona sophomore Bryce James still has a long road ahead of him as he tries to develop into an NBA prospect in the 3-and-D wing archetype. After redshirting as a freshman, James is likely to crack Arizona's rotation as a sophomore, particularly if Godfrey is not ruled eligible. The 6-foot-5 sophomore started all three of Arizona's exhibition games but played no more than 15 minutes in any of them. He tallied a combined six points and zero rebounds.
32. ACC breakout star: Chance Mallory, G, Virginia
33. Big East breakout star: Jayden Ross, F, UConn
34. Big Ten breakout star: Trey McKenney, G, Michigan
35. Big 12 breakout star: Chase McCarty, F, Houston
36. SEC breakout star: Malachi Moreno, C, Kentucky
37. NBA teams may not be as tempted as usual to tank this season in hopes of securing a top pick in the 2027 draft. And not because of a change in the rules. There are no surefire can't-miss stars in this year's freshman class, no AJ Dybantsas or Darryn Petersons, no Caleb Wilsons or Cameron Boozers.
Kansas freshman Tyran Stokes is viewed as a potential future No. 1 overall pick.
38. Kansas freshman Tyran Stokes is the only player with physical tools comparable to the top players from last year's class, but scouts question the long, athletic 6-foot-7 wing's emotional maturity and turnover-prone decision making. Stokes took a step toward solidifying himself as the future No. 1 overall pick in an exhibition loss to Duke this past Sunday. He drew a game-high nine fouls over the course of a 27-point, 8-rebound, 7-assist performance.
39. Freshmen besides Stokes who will make the biggest impact this season: Jordan Smith Jr. (Arkansas), Caleb Holt (Arizona), Jason Crowe Jr. (Missouri)
40. Freshmen ranked outside the Rivals top 15 who will make the biggest impact this season: Miles Sadler (West Virginia), Obinna Ekezie Jr. (Louisville), Quentin Coleman (Illinois)
41. Trend that will have staying power: Freshmen ranked in the top 150 committing to mid-majors despite interest from power-conference programs. Pepperdine, UC Irvine, VCU, Florida Atlantic, Florida International, Utah Tech, Liberty and George Mason each landed at least one such player. With more top programs preferring to rely on veterans, these freshmen are making a shrewd choice gambling that they can parlay 1-2 dominant seasons at the mid-major level into the chance to transfer up to a power conference program for a massive payday.
42. Arizona will have three first-round picks in next year's draft, maybe even three lottery picks if highly touted freshman Caleb Holt progresses as a playmaker and wing Ivan Kharchenkov and 7-footer Motiejus Krivas evolve from defense-first role players to two-way contributors.
43. What will determine if Arizona emerges as a true tier-one title contender is the supporting cast. Can transfers Derek Dixon and JJ Mandaquit emerge as a formidable combination at point guard? Will fifth-year transfer RJ Godfrey win his eligibility battle? And, if not, who will fill the void at power forward created by Koa Peat bolting for the NBA?
44. It's time to re-evaluate Baylor after the Bears delivered back-to-back exhibition victories against two of the top three teams in the AP Top 25. Yes, they were only exhibitions, but beating Florida and Illinois was majorly impressive. Baylor did not receive a single vote in the preseason AP Top 25 and was projected to finish 10th in the Big 12. Scott Drew's Bears have a chance to make both those look silly very quickly.
45. Midnight is likely to come early again for Cinderella this March. Two years ago, no team from outside the power conferences advanced to the round of 16 for the first time since the NCAA tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985. Last year, it happened again. Talent is concentrating at the power-conference level like never before because top-tier programs can offer massive NIL payouts to the best available players and because transfer rules no longer prevent players from switching schools as often as they want without penalty.
46. That said, don't be surprised if one or two small-conference underdogs still spring early-round upsets. Last year, Santa Clara nearly toppled Kentucky, Siena led top-seeded Duke deep into the second half and Wright State pushed Virginia. If a couple of those close games go the other way, the conversation would have been different.
47. Mid-major who could string together a couple wins this March: High Point. This could be the strongest High Point team yet, better even than last year's edition that won 31 games and took down Wisconsin in the opening round of the NCAA tournament. The well-funded Panthers have reloaded thanks to the return of Big South preseason player of the year Cam'ron Fletcher and the arrival of a decorated group of transfers.
48. Other mid-majors who will be dangerous: Grand Canyon, Saint Louis, New Mexico, VCU, Utah State, Santa Clara, McNeese, Wichita State.
49. At least 11 SEC teams will make the NCAA tournament — and 12 or 13 is not out of the realm of possibility. Deep-pocketed SEC programs have spent big to retain elite talent and load up on proven transfers and coveted newcomers. This will be the top league in college basketball again, just like it was two years ago.
In his second year at Texas, Sean Miller is poised to take the Longhorns deep into the NCAA tournament.
50. Texas isn't just the SEC team most likely to dethrone preseason No. 1 Florida as league champs. The Longhorns are talented enough for Sean Miller to finally shed the label of college basketball's best coach never to make a Final Four. The frontcourt is so loaded that decorated freshman Marcus Spears Jr. is likely to start the season coming off the bench behind preseason second-team all-SEC center Matas Vokietaitis and high-motor TCU transfer David Punch. And the perimeter corps aren't bad either, headlined by point guard Isaiah Johnson, a prized transfer from Colorado.
51. Alabama coach Nate Oats isn't someone who would shy away from bringing in players with dubious eligibility cases, so the fact that the Tide didn't make any late additions this summer is probably a sign that he likes his roster. Will the backcourt of Aden Holloway and Amari Allen help Alabama outperform its preseason No. 20 ranking and finish in the top four in the SEC? The guess here is yes.
52. Incoming international players who will make the biggest impact this season: Quinn Ellis (St. John's), Saliou Niang (LSU), Nikola Kusturica (UCLA)
53. Is this Bill Self's final season at Kansas? The question will hang over the Jayhawks until Self confirms that he's coming back for another year or retiring after the NCAA tournament. Self has dealt with a flurry of health issues the past few years. Not even he probably knows for sure yet if this season is his finale.
54. Top ACC transfer: Flory Bidunga (Kansas to Louisville)
55. Top Big East transfer: Tounde Yessoufou (Baylor to St. John's)
56. Top Big Ten transfer: Markus Burton (Notre Dame to Indiana)
57. Top Big 12 transfer: Darrion Williams (NC State to Texas Tech)
58. Top Pac-12 transfer: Massamba Diop (Arizona State to Gonzaga)
59. Top SEC transfer: Milan Momcilovich (Iowa State to Kentucky)
60. This year's Maui Invitational will be an improvement over last year's abomination but it still won't be must-see Thanksgiving week TV like previous iterations.Preseason No. 5 Arizona is the only headliner. BYU, VCU, Providence, Ole Miss, Clemson, Colorado State and Washington round out a solid but unremarkable field.
61. Expect the Maui Invitational to continue to fade from relevance unless organizers find a way to compete with the 24-team Players Era Festival, which grants each program that participates $1 million for NIL allocation. This year's Players Era tournaments include many of the top programs in college basketball. Meanwhile, check out the underwhelming 2027 Maui field.
62. Team that will make the biggest leap this season: Marquette. After enduring a nightmarish 20-loss season last winter, Shaka Smart has the Golden Eagles poised to return to the NCAA tournament. Sophomore point guard Nigel James Jr. headlines a list of nine returners, providing more continuity than almost every other program in the country. And after going four years without taking a transfer, Smart finally dipped into the portal again, adding Louisville center Sananda Fru and St. Thomas guard Nolan Minessale.
63. Team that will fall the farthest this season: Purdue. This could look like a terrible call by Christmas — I know, I know, always bet on Matt Painter — but the Boilermakers have to replace four starters, including the NCAA's all-time assists leader. The returning players will have to take on expanded roles while adjusting to a drastic stylistic change without a true back-to-the-basket threat for the first time in years.
64. New North Carolina coach Michael Malone will have to validate his reputation for X's-and-O's wizardry to catapult the Tar Heels to national relevance during his inaugural season. This revamped, newcomer-laden roster appears more fringe Top 25-worthy than one capable of challenging Duke for ACC supremacy.
65. Coach who will be in most demand next spring: Josh Schertz, Saint Louis. He was already a candidate for several high-major openings last spring after guiding the Billikens to 29 wins in just his second season with the program. Now, Schertz has another roster capable of winning the Atlantic 10 and breaking into the AP Top 25, so expect him to have his pick of multiple jobs once again next year.
66. Other coaches in position to move up: Eric Olen (New Mexico), Flynn Clayman (High Point), Phil Martelli Jr. (VCU)
67. Division I players whose names will receive the most attention during TV broadcasts next season: Vanderbilt forward Chandler Bing, Loyola Marymount guard All Wright and UT Rio Grande Valley guard Always Wright.
68. None of them can claim the sport's most eye-catching name. Meet Amillion Buggs of Division II West Alabama.
69. Ben McCollum has a long history of finding a way to win without departed stars, so expect Iowa to exceed expectations despite the loss of Bennett Stirtz. A half-dozen rotation players return for the Hawkeyes, but Stirtz was the player who generated open shots for himself and his teammates. For Iowa to be good again, McCollum will need to develop another leverage player who can create advantages.
70. Decision to stay in school that will look smart: Thomas Haugh, Florida. He likely would have been a first-round pick had he entered the 2026 NBA Draft, but Haugh instead agreed to return to Florida on an NIL deal that reportedly will exceed $8 million. That means Haugh is making more than he would have as an NBA rookie while chasing a second championship at Florida and potentially boosting his draft stock even higher.
71. Projected national coach of the year: Jai Lucas, Miami
72. Projected national player of the year: Thomas Haugh, Florida
73. Projected first-team All-Americans: Jeremy Fears, G, Michigan State; Tyler Tanner, G, Vanderbilt; Thomas Haugh, F, Florida; David Mirkovic, F, Illinois; Motiejus Krivas, C, Arizona
74. Early Final Four prediction: Duke, Florida, Texas, UConn
75. Early national champion prediction: Duke
76. Most of these preseason predictions will probably be wrong. The most fun part of college basketball is that it always defies expectations.
Source: Sports
