With high school recruiting finalized and the last few transfers and international players committed, it seems the dust has finally settled: the college basketball rosters are all but set for the 2025-2026 season.
With that, the constant shifting of sportsbook odds to win the National Championship in 2026 has come to an end. As it stands, here are today’s highest odds to win the 2026 Men’s Basketball National Championship, per FanDuel Sportsbook:
- Purdue +900
- Houston +1000
- Duke +1100
- Florida +1700
- UConn +1700
- Kentucky +1700
- Michigan +1900
- Louisville +2000
- Texas Tech +2000
- Kansas +2000
- BYU +2000
- Auburn +2500
All 12 of the teams above have done some combination of signing blue chip HS recruits, luring top tier transfers, and bringing back All-American talent. As time has so often told, success in March requires a certain level of maturity and leadership. This fact alone puts less of an importance on the incoming freshmen.
With the emergence of the NIL era, the transfer portal is more important than ever. The arms race between top tier programs to bring in the best veteran transfer talent remains prominent, as experience proves to be extremely valuable each year.
This brings me to the Kentucky Wildcats. Per 247 Sports, Kentucky had the 4th ranked off-season in terms of both HS recruiting and the transfer portal. This was largely driven by Mark Pope bringing in the 5th ranked transfer portal class, including:
- 5-Star center Jayden Quaintance (Arizona State)
- 4-star guard Denzel Aberdeen (Florida)
- 4-star guard Jalen Lowe (Pittsburgh)
- 4-star forward Mouhamed Dioubate (Alabama)
- 4-star forward Kam Williams (Tulane)
On top of the massive transfer portal haul, Kentucky signed three incoming freshmen ranked in the top 35 nationally, in Jasper Johnson, Malachi Moreno, and Braydone Hawthorne. In sum, Mark Pope has constructed an 8 man supporting cast for his returning star: Otega Oweh.
The icing on the cake for Kentucky is that they will not need to rely on one of their new faces to lead. Otega Oweh (16.2 PPG, 49% FG in 2024-2025) flirted with the NBA Draft, but ultimately decided to run it back in Lexington. Oweh has already been identified as an early favorite for SEC Player of the Year, and rightfully so.
Oweh was not only a prolific scorer, but a clutch scorer. Kentucky won multiple games last year down the stretch through Oweh creating offense possession after possession in the final minutes.
He’s the type of guy that can take over in March, as we’ve seen from so many veteran players in years past. With the additions of the five prominent transfers and three blue chip freshmen, Mark Pope has the right cocktail of talent, depth, and leadership for a deep run next March.
The Pick: Kentucky +1700