The National Championship is over, and a big congratulations to the Michigan Wolverines. They are the 2025-2026 National Champions. West Virginia won the Crown, and Auburn won the NIT. Those are just three of the events that happened during the season.
The 2025-2026 season was historic for many programs, and there were major storylines to follow throughout. Now that the season is over and the transfer portal has officially opened, it is a good time to review the 10 biggest storylines of the 2025-2026 season. These will take us all the way back to November and culminate in April. It was quite a season and one that will be remembered for a long time.
Nebraska has a season for the ages.
Everyone knows the history of the Nebraska basketball program, or perhaps it should be the lack of history. Heading into the season, the Huskers had never won an NCAA Tournament game, making them the only power conference school to never win a game in the Big Dance. This year felt different from the start, though, because Nebraska had a ton of momentum after winning the college basketball crown at the end of the 2025 season.
Coach Fred Hoiberg took that momentum and helped his team win 20 games in a row, and with the 4 games they had won in the Crown the previous season, Nebraska had a 24-game winning streak to start the season. The 15 wins in the Big Ten were the most the program has ever had. 28 total wins are the most in school history. Nebraska was ranked in the top 5 for two weeks and in the top 15 for most of the season—the longest stretch in Husker history. Guard Pryce Sandfort holds the Nebraska record for most threes made in a season. All of that is excellent, but did the Huskers finally get the monkey off their back?
The answer is YES! The Huskers finally won a game in the NCAA Tournament, defeating Troy in the first round. Then, for some added icing, the Huskers beat Vanderbilt in the second round of the NCAA Tournament in what was one of the best games in NCAA Tournament history. Freshman phenom Braden Frager made a driving layup with 2 seconds left on the clock to win the game. Nebraska was picked to finish 14th in the league and ended up in 2nd in the Big Ten. What a season for the Huskers, and one that has the fans in Lincoln ecstatic and ready for more
Boozer Twins
Duke is the bluest of blue bloods, and they will always have a top-tier roster. The name on the jersey and playing at Cameron Indoor Stadium mean something to kids. The name holds weight even in the NIL era. It doesn’t hurt that the Blue Devils have a lot of NIL money, but it is still hard to put a team together in this day and age of basketball.
Head coach Jon Scheyer secured the best player in the country last season when he was able to secure the commitment of Cooper Flagg. Flagg was the overall number 1 pick in the NBA draft and led Duke to a Final Four appearance. Scheyer struck gold again in the 2025-2026 season when Cameron and Cayden Boozer took the college basketball season by storm. Let’s amend that for a second. Cameron Boozer was the player who dominated the game again this year, leading Duke to the number one ranking and the top overall seed in the NCAA Tournament. It was Cayden Boozer who showed up and showed out in the NCAA Tournament to lead Duke to an Elite Eight. The Boozer twins were also the players responsible for turning the ball over late, leading to a game-winning three for UConn in the Elite Eight.
Cameron Boozer will likely be the number 1 pick in the draft again, will likely win the Naismith Player of the Year award, was the best freshman in the country, and will have a long NBA career, just like his father. Duke keeps churning out talent.
NBA Players come back to College
That must be a misprint, right, or a misinterpretation? Nope, the headline is right. NBA players who were unhappy with their roles in the NBA decided to come back to college and play college basketball again. It all started when Scott Drew, head coach at Baylor, needed a guy to help the Bears win games; he signed NBA draft pick James Nnaji. If that wasn’t bad enough, Nnaji was granted four full years by the NCAA. Nnaji didn’t do much in basketball this year and, by the end of the year, was barely playing.
Then let’s get to Alabama. It’s not a secret that Nate Oats has had his share of controversy in his time as the head man in Tuscaloosa, but this was the worst look yet for Oats. The Crimson Tide signed current NBA player Charles Bediako to finish out his eligibility at Alabama. Bediako never officially played in the NBA but was an active G League player, which, under the current rules, would make him ineligible.
However, when you have a donor who is a judge, and that judge just so happens to preside over the case of Bediako and his eligibility. The big man sued the NCAA regarding his eligibility. You get a chance to play. The big man was allowed to play for a month under a temporary injunction before he finally dropped his case against the NCAA. I know that NIL changes things in the basketball landscape, but the NCAA has vehemently opposed players who have played in the NBA or G-League gaining eligibility. If it continues to be allowed, the sport is in a lot of trouble.
Jizzle James and Cincinnati
There was buzz around the Bearcats heading into the 2025-2026 season. Head coach Wes Miller had many of his core players coming back, including leading scorer Jizzle James. Add James to a fantastic recruiting class, and Cincinnati was the team that many thought could be a sleeper team to make a deep run into March.
At least that was the plan. A few days before the season started, the Bearcats removed their star from the team. The Bearcats struggled without their star, and it was so bad that coach Miller lifted his suspension of James and reinstated him right before Christmas. The addition of the Bearcats' star didn’t go according to plan right away, but towards the end of the year, when Cincinnati was making a run towards the postseason, James was carrying the Bearcats.
Ultimately, Cincinnati failed to make the NCAA Tournament, which ultimately cost coach Miller his job. The Bearcats hired head coach Jarred Calhoun and kept James. This will not be the last you hear from Jizzle this year. Cincinnati needs him to reach its full potential next season.
Utah Valley Saga
Saga is the only word to describe the pettiness involved in this. Many people probably don’t know much about this, but let’s get everyone up to speed as quickly as possible. The WAC, which Utah Valley was part of in 2025-2026, rebranded as the United Athletic Conference and added some members. It was done for football purposes.
The Utah Valley Wolverines do not have a football program and decided to leave the WAC or the UAC for the Big West. That is where the controversy and the pettiness start. Utah Valley was charged a $ 1 million exit fee, which the university disputed because the exit fee was not charged to all departing members, seemingly only to Utah Valley.
That led to the WAC commissioner “banning” Utah Valley from postseason play and to a lawsuit by the Wolverines against the WAC. Utah Valley eventually won the lawsuit, provided it put 1 million dollars into a court escrow account. The WAC didn’t like that ruling and still tried to ban the Wolverines anyway until the court had to step in again and say Utah Valley had kept up its end of the bargain.
It was petty and unnecessary litigation forced by the WAC. Why would a non-football member stay and be a part of a conference that was created solely for Football? The pettiness of keeping Utah Valley from competing for a conference championship, which they were the top seed in, was, and still is, ridiculous.
Steven Pearl and the Auburn Tigers
Auburn was one of the best teams in the country at the end of the 2024-2025 season, and with what the Tigers had coming back for the 2025-2026 season, there were high expectations for the Tigers again. Right before the season started, everything changed when legendary coach Bruce Pearl stepped down, leaving the program in the hands of his son, Steven.
It was a logical move, considering the younger Pearl was the associate head coach, but the timing made it doomed to fail. Auburn was never given much of a chance to learn how the new coach, Pearl, would make in-game adjustments when Auburn faced adversity. It didn’t help that the Tigers played the number one strength-of-schedule in the country. It was rightfully a mess at Auburn, and Pearl could never get his team out of their season-long funk.
The Tigers ended up with 16 losses, were NIT champions, and did net wins over Florida, Texas, and Kentucky. Had the Tigers not lost 16 games, I am positive they would have made the NCAA Tournament. However, they did lose 16 games and didn’t deserve to make the tournament, I don’t care what their old legendary coach Bruce Pearl says. Auburn was a fun story to follow all season because of its ups and downs. They will be just fine under younger Pearl.
Undefeated RedHawks!
Welcome to the most polarizing topic of the 2025-2026 basketball season, the Miami Ohio RedHawks. According to most of you, they are the worst 32-win team ever to exist and had zero business playing in the NCAA Tournament, even if they did win a game against an ACC opponent in the First Four.
I am sure by now you have all seen the news, Miami Ohio finished the season 32-2 and did so without playing a single Quad 1 game. There was a lot that went into that schedule as well. The Redhawks did reach out to some power-conference teams and better mid-majors about scheduling games in which they would travel and play true road games, but they were often left on read or received no response to their emails. Miami then decided on short notice to schedule some non-Division 1 games. Those games contributed to the 360th-ranked schedule in the country. Which is what so many of you were hung up on when it came time for the NCAA Tournament selection. The facts are that the RedHawks earned their spot by winning 31 games, and it should never have been in question after they lost in the MAC tournament.
It is extremely hard to win 31 straight games, no matter the competition. That is why they deserved to be included in the NCAA Tournament, and it was validated when they blew out the SMU Mustangs in the First Four game, advancing to the round of 64 against Tennessee. Appreciate what Miami Ohio did; as it may never be done again, a low-major winning 31 games in a row is hard, and if it were that easy, a lot of teams would be doing it every year by playing bad schedules.
Darryn Peterson
Peterson arrived at the University of Kansas as the sure-fire number 1 pick in the NBA draft. He was the player who was going to take the Jayhawks to the top of the Big 12 again and was the one who was going to rejuvenate Bill Self to keep on coaching and finally win another championship for Kansas.
One thing is for sure: Peterson is one of the most talented players in the country and is going to make a ton of money in the NBA, so that was correct. The problem is that no one knows what his true potential is because the guard sat out most of the season with various ailments. Most of them were related to cramping, which caused Peterson to mix weeks and multiple games. Those must have been the worst cramps of all time. There were games he left in the middle of, a missed game because of the flu, and other things. The star guard seemed to frustrate Self, but with his talent, it is hard to keep him out of the lineup.
No one is disputing Peterson's talent; what people were disputing was his willingness to care and the extent to which he cared. He didn’t seem to want to play college basketball very much, so why not just play Overtime Elite for a season? Those are questions we will never have the answer to. Another question we will never get an answer to is: What would have happened if Peterson had played the entire season? Could Kansas have gotten a 1 seed again? We will never know. Hopefully, the guard gets his cramping issue figured out in the NBA.
Elite Coaching Openings
There are coaching changes every season, and they are usually bad power-five teams trying to find another coach who will hopefully bring that program out of the mud to the promised land. The other coaching changes every year take place between low- and mid-major teams, so not all of them are that interesting to the non-sicko basketball fan, though. This season, though, there were a ton of elite jobs open, and many of them are likely not going to be open again for a long time.
Some of the elite jobs that opened were Syracuse, which fired Red Autry. The Orange hired former star player Gerry McNamara. Greg McDermott retired, and Creighton has a new coach in Alan Huss. Finally, the elite of the elite jobs in North Carolina opened, and instead of going to the college ranks, the Tar Heels decided to hire Mike Malone, formerly of the Denver Nuggets.
Those three jobs are unlikely to be open again for a long time, and they especially won't be open at the same time. It will be strange to see new faces roaming the sidelines at these three fantastic jobs. Now, whether the hires will work out is a different story.
Michigan Wolverines Dominance
Heading into the season, the Wolverines had the best roster, and it culminated in their first National Championship since 1989. It wasn’t the Title that turned the heads; it was the utter dominance Michigan displayed en route to the National Championship game.
The Wolverines won 37 games, had a point differential of +17.5, and had 29 10-point wins, 16 20-point wins, and 11 30-point wins. The 30-point wins were not just against scrubs either. San Diego State, Gonzaga, Auburn, and McNeese were just some of the 30-point wins. The dominance showed again in the NCAA Tournament, scoring over 90 in 5 of their 6 win,s which is the best.
The scoring margin is one thing, but the 19-1 Big Ten regular-season record was the best in league history. The only teams to beat Michigan had to hit a ton of threes or have a player who could disrupt the Michigan rhythm in the front court. There will be people saying that Michigan may be one of the best teams of all time, and that will be hard to dispute.