College Basketball is almost back. Preseason rankings released yesterday and the season opener is in less than two weeks. Rosters are still in question, teams have moved to new conferences, hundreds of players have transferred, and many key freshman look to make their mark.
This is my favorite sport of all and I love watching it every single week. Once conference play starts, Saturday is for college basketball from noon until midnight (and usually later). Before then, non-conference play has some incredible matchups and you can learn a lot about the teams. There are so many storylines to follow and players to watch and I can’t wait for the season to start.
Court injunctions and legal battles have been the story of the offseason. Players returning from the NBA summer league want to play college basketball again, many players are trying for a fifth year of eligibility even if they don’t have one, and many European players in their twenties are trying to play college basketball. It will be interesting to see who is able to play and who isn’t as the season goes on. It will suck if there are guys being added to rosters midway through the season and will also cause problems if there are guys being removed after the season has already begun. This post isn’t going to be about college basketball’s eligibility problem but I did feel the need to mention it. I want to focus on the positives such as the games to come.
November basketball has huge early tests for most contenders. Some years there will be teams that stand out and end up becoming clear championship favorites like 2025-26 Michigan or you’ll see a team like 2019-20 Michigan who looks really good early but don’t turn out too well. There will be teams that shine and show they will be favorites in March, but the games in November don’t say everything. November has Feast Week and all the MTEs (multi-team event) such as the Players Era, Maui Invitational, and Battle 4 Atlantis which always lead to fun tournaments early in the season. November basketball is a great time that a lot of people miss out on since they only become fans of the sport in March. College basketball is my favorite sport in the country and too many people say they’re fans yet only are fans of the tournament. I get it but they miss out on all the storylines and great matchups throughout the season by only paying attention to the end. Although the end of the season does happen to be the best tournament in sports.
So now to focus on the matchups. It isn’t in November but I want to highlight Duke at Florida on December 1st. For anyone interested in watching the sport, these look like the two best teams on paper and it could be a national championship preview early on. For preseason number 1 Florida, other key matchups in November are against 14th ranked Miami on the second as well as the Players Era Eight tournament in the third week of the season. The favorites in that MTE include Houston and Kansas as well and that will be a key one to watch during week 3. And for Duke, they play 6th ranked Michigan State, 3rd ranked Illinois, and 4th ranked UConn all in November. The game against UConn the night before Thanksgiving should be one of the best games of the year. UConn has Duke transfer Nik Khamenia and returning sophomore Braylon Mullins, who hit the game winning three pointer to eliminate Duke at the buzzer in the elite eight last season. It will be a huge tournament rematch for two should be contenders. I know there is an NFL game that night this year, but Duke vs UConn is a must watch.
Now that I covered the two favorites, I want to highlight other key non-conference matchups in the first month of the season. The first full night has matchups like Arizona vs UCLA, Gonzaga vs Purdue, and Ohio State vs BYU. Arizona vs UCLA should be a nice former Pac-12 matchup but I expect Arizona to come out on top. The Friday of the first week features a Final Four rematch between UConn and Michigan, although Michigan will look extremely different after losing coach Dusty May to the Dallas Mavericks along with multiple starters. To close out the first week, John Calipari’s Arkansas squad, featuring the top recruiting class, takes on Virginia in a top 12 battle in Washington DC. That’s all in the first week alone.
Week two features the Champions Classic as always with the matchups this year being Michigan State vs Duke and a blue-blood battle between Kansas and Kentucky. Kansas features the number 1 recruit in the country: Tyran Stokes. I don’t have much faith in Kentucky this season but they could surprise me. If they don’t have a good season, I wouldn’t be surprised if Mark Pope loses his job. On the other side, I think Bill Self will retire after this season which could mean both the Kansas and Kentucky job could be open next offseason. 3rd ranked Illinois also takes on Texas Tech that night in a rematch of last year’s regular season game. This should also be good and I expect Illinois to contend again after making the Final Four last year.
In the third week, the Players Era Eight begins but that isn’t it for huge matchups. There are two top 5 showdowns on the schedule: Duke vs Illinois and UConn vs Arizona on back-to-back nights. Illinois will want a better showing than the last time they played Duke and UConn will want revenge for last year’s November loss to Arizona. The rest of the week isn’t packed but that changes for the next week leading into Thanksgiving.
Feast Week is arguably the best time of the year for college basketball outside of March. Highlighted by MTEs liked the Battle 4 Atlantis which features Virginia as the favorite, the Maui Invitational highlighted by Arizona, and the Players Era 16 this year. The Players Era looks to have improved a lot since last year since it know features an actual bracket instead of a flawed two game round robin format from last year. This year’s tournament includes numerous ranked teams like Gonzaga, Iowa State, Alabama, Michigan, Texas Tech, and Miami. Along with Baylor who knocked off Florida recently in a preseason exhibition, Oregon and Creighton with new head coaches, and three more ranked teams: Tennessee, St. John’s, and Louisville who all have a case for the best transfer class in the country. This looks a lot better than last year and will have a championship game on Saturday November 28th. As previously mentioned, this week has UConn vs Duke on the 25th in one of the most anticipated games of the year. Thanksgiving features a battle between Calipari and Izzo as Arkansas takes on Michigan State in Detroit too. This week looks to have a ton of great matchups and it tends to tell a lot going forward. 20 of the past 21 national champions have been undefeated through Thanksgiving so it doesn’t guarantee anything but it does paint a pretty accurate picture of who has a shot.
I’m very curious to see how the top transfer classes like St. John’s, Tennessee, Louisville, Kentucky, and Texas do as well as the top recruiting classes like Arkansas, Kansas, and Duke. It should be a great season and I can’t wait for it to start.
I want to talk briefly about a few more changes to the sport. First, the Pac-12 is back… kind of. It only shares two members with the former conference but I am excited to see how this new conference stacks up in basketball. Having frequent tournament teams like Gonzaga, San Diego State, and Utah State should lead to a competitive conference that will probably be one of the seven best in the country and should get multiple bids. Actually it should for sure get multiple bids due to the next change I want to mention: the expanded tournament. If you read my most recent post about college football, you already know I’m not in favor of this. 76 teams is too many for March Madness. Having 24 games in the opening round before the Round of 64 is too much. I would be in favor potentially if it leads to many more mid-major schools who didn’t win their conference getting in, like Belmont last year or Indiana State a few years ago. But I fully expect it to be almost all power five schools and will pave paths for teams like Auburn last year. Auburn was not a bad team but to me, any team that is 17-16 shouldn’t be a tournament team. I get they played a great schedule but I would rather reward the teams that win and not constantly allowing the biggest conferences to get almost every team in. I’m not a fan of expansion and I don’t like trying to mess with something that is already spectacular. The bubble in recent years has already felt extremely weak and it’s only going to keep getting weaker.
But enough with the negativity, this sport is fun and the season is still going to be amazing. Huge matchups take place early between top ten teams, big MTEs will lead to top teams facing each other, and Feast Week will be awesome as always. I can’t wait for the season to start and I look forward to watching more preseason matchups too.
For my way too early prediction, I think the Final Four will include Duke, Florida, Illinois, and Arkansas, with Duke winning the title. I know I picked the top three teams but they’re the top three for a reason. So many other teams look capable of contending but I do think it could be a three team race most of the way.
I’ll talk about the season extensively as it goes on and as it gets to February and March, I usually work on my own bracketology. I’ll make another post in the coming days about Duke’s season and I hope you’ll enjoy. Thank you so much for reading, it’s almost time for the best sport to be back.
Photo credits go to Bleacher Report and ESPN