With a new NCAAB season set to tip-off on Monday, our staff is breaking down their top futures to get you set from a betting perspective.
So, dive in below for college basketball futures, including five picks and one National Player of the Year projection.
5 College Basketball Futures
Saint Mary's Gaels
To Win WCC (+550)
Since 2002, Randy Bennett has surpassed even the loftiest expectations that the Saint Mary’s athletic department may have had when they chose to hire him as their head coach.
After taking a couple of years to find his footing, Bennett has led the Gaels to a winning record in every season since the 2003-04 campaign.
The Gaels' worst KenPom finish during that span was 75th, which came during the COVID season.
Despite the consistent success, Saint Mary’s received little to no consideration in this season's initial AP Poll.
To be fair, Bennett will be tasked with replacing quite a bit of production from last year’s WCC championship squad.
Aidan Mahaney made the cross-country trip up to Storrs, CT, to play for Dan Hurley after averaging nearly 14 points per game last season.
Alex Ducas’ perimeter shooting earned him a two-way contract with the Oklahoma City Thunder after a successful final season in Moraga.
And unfortunately for Saint Mary's, Joshua Jefferson is now on Iowa State after rehabbing from a leg injury that ended his season after 26 games.
At a time when many successful, tenured coaches are opting out of the college basketball landscape, Bennett is zagging. He's accepted the reality that some of his best players are more likely to leave.
Bennett’s recent recruiting success supports that sentiment. The Gaels' six new roster additions include two high-major transfers in Paulius Murauskas (Arizona) and Ashton Hardaway (Memphis) and four talented freshmen that could make immediate contributions.
Mikey Lewis is a rare top-100 recruit for Saint Mary’s that has a chance to lead the team in scoring in his freshman campaign.
Saint Mary’s holds the bragging rights over WCC powerhouse Gonzaga by virtue of winning the league last season. Bennett will rely heavily upon his proven First Team All-WCC veterans — Mitchell Saxen and Augustas Marciulionis — to defend that crown.
Saxen earned WCC Defensive Player of the Year honors, while his teammate Marciulionas was named the conference's Player of the Year award.
Saint Mary's turned things around in 2023-24 after beginning with a shockingly poor 8-6 record.
I don’t expect a similarly sluggish start this year, so take Saint Mary’s to win the WCC, which will ultimately earn Bennett yet another appearance in the NCAA Tournament.
Pick: Saint Mary's to Win WCC (+550)
Mark Sears
To Win National Player of the Year (+800)
By Sean Paul
OK, I’ll be honest. I’m a bit perplexed as to why Mark Sears is behind North Carolina’s RJ Davis and Kansas’s Hunter Dickinson in the preseason National Player of the Year odds.
That’ll change if Alabama is as good as everyone expects — which it likely will be — and Sears being an absolute stud likely coincides with the Tide’s No. 1-overall-ranking upside.
If it weren’t for Zach Edey taking the country by storm last year, Sears had a chance to win the award. The 6-foot-1 guard averaged some of the best numbers you’ll see — 21.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and 4.2 assists on 50.8% shooting and 43.7% from 3.
It's pretty insane to average over 20 points while hitting half of your shots and nearly half of your 3s.
I think Alabama is the best team in the country, and typically the National Player of the Year comes from a team ranked in the top 10.
If the Tide are that good, Sears likely wins the award unless Davis, Dickinson or Cooper Flagg somehow post even betters numbers, which seems unlikely.
Pick: Mark Sears to Win National Player of the Year (+800)
Saint Joe's
To Win Atlantic 10 (+1000)
Great guards win in college basketball, and Saint Joe's arguably has the best backcourt in the Atlantic 10, including a candidate for league Player of the Year in Erik Reynolds II.
Reynolds (17.3 PPG) joins Saint Joe's second-leading scorer from last year — Xzayvier Brown — and Rutgers transfer Derek Simpson to form an experienced and lethal trio.
While the Atlantic 10-favorite VCU has its own deadly backcourt, there are major questions about its frontcourt. Saint Joe's doesn't have those obvious questions, as Rasheer Fleming (10.7 PPG, 7.4 RPG) returns for his junior campaign and Harvard grad transfer Justice Ajogbor enters the mix.
Also, the Hawks' schedule is favorable, especially down the stretch of the season. After early February, they don't face a single team higher than sixth in the Atlantic 10 preseason poll, including two meetings with La Salle, the projected last-place squad.
Most importantly, this number holds significant value at FanDuel; the Hawks are as low as +400 to win the league on BetMGM.
Pick: Saint Joe's to Win Atlantic 10 (+1000)
Kentucky Wildcats
To Win SEC (+1800)
This is a bet about the SEC becoming chaotic as much as it is belief in the Cats. Alabama, Auburn and Tennessee make up a sturdy trio of near co-favorites at most books, each being offered between +200 and +400, with the Tide generally leading the way before a huge drop-off to the pack behind.
I don’t disagree that these are good teams — especially Alabama — but I have my doubts that anyone is making it through the SEC this year without being bruised and battered along the way.
Once you lower the ceiling of the regular season to a team with several losses, it’s far easier to see that crown going to a wider swath of teams.
Texas A&M, Arkansas, Texas, Florida and more will all have eyes on being in the top quadrant of a newly-stacked SEC, but it’s Mark Pope’s Kentucky team I see as having the highest ceiling.
Pope was certainly not the first name on the list of Big Blue Nation, yet he's done everything right in his first offseason helming his alma mater.
He used Kentucky’s vast NIL budget to hammer the transfer portal, building a team not just full of talent, but one that makes sense on paper for Pope’s run-and-fire style of play.
With a veteran backcourt, a cadre of shooters and a wildly underrated rim protector in former Drexel big Amari Williams, Pope has built a team with a sky-high ceiling.
If this team of transfers can gel by January, I expect to see it punching with the SEC’s best.
Pick: Kentucky to Win SEC (+1800)
Indiana Hoosiers
To Win Big Ten (+650)
By Greg Waddell
OK, I know picking a Mike Woodson team to win its regular season conference championship doesn’t exactly make people feel all warm and fuzzy.
But there’s one team at the projected top of the Big Ten that's trending upward after exhibition season while all the others work through concerns of various magnitudes.
That one team is the Hoosiers.
Indiana still can’t buy a shot from outside, but its backcourt is vastly improved from Xavier Johnson and nobody into Myles Rice and Kanaan Carlyle. The Hoosiers looked the part, particularly Rice, in Indiana’s exhibition win at Tennessee.
But the value here lies largely in the fact that the other contenders all have glaring issues.
Purdue is cycling through different starting centers and even tried veteran Will Berg (who looked wildly unprepared) in the preseason.
UCLA lost a secret scrimmage against a severely under-manned San Diego State team missing it’s starting backcourt.
Michigan State has looked underwhelming in multiple appearances.
Illinois’ young stars got blitzed by a veteran Ole Miss team picked in the middle of the pack of the SEC.
Indiana’s shooting concerns are valid, but Mackenzie Mgbako and Luke Goode could provide some answers there, which is a better answer to its biggest question than all its other Big Ten rivals have.
At +650, this is fantastic value on the most talented team in the league.
Pick: Indiana to Win Big Ten (+650)
