Duke Favored To Win NCAA Championship: ‘In A Class By Themselves’
· Yahoo Sports
NEWARK, NEW JERSEY - MARCH 29: Head coach Jon Scheyer of the Duke Blue Devils lifts the trophy after defeating the Alabama Crimson Tide in the East Regional Elite Eight round of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at Prudential Center on March 29, 2025 in Newark, New Jersey. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)
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Getty ImagesWhenever NBA scouts pass through Carnesecca Arena to watch St. John’s practice, Naismith Hall of Fame coach Rick Pitino picks their brains about the other college teams they’ve seen heading into the start of the 2026-27 college basketball season.
And with the season set to tip off on Monday, Pitino has received a consistent message: Duke is in a “class by themselves" in terms of talent.
“What I’ve heard from all the pro scouts that have come in to watch practice is that there are a lot of great teams but Duke is in a class by themselves,” said Pitino, who has taken six schools to the NCAA Tournament and won national championships at two of them. “That’s what every scout has said, that Duke is at a level early in the season like nobody they’ve seen in college basketball.”
Florida is actually No. 1 in the AP Preseason Poll, having received 47 first-place votes, with Duke at No. 2 with 10 first-place votes. Illinois is No. 3, with UConn at No. 4 and Arizona at No. 5.
But in terms of the betting odds to win the NCAA championship, Duke is a slight favorite over Florida, per DraftKings.
NCAA Championship Odds per DraftKings:
Duke - +550
Florida - +600
UConn - 12/1
Illinois - 14/1
Michigan State - 18/1
NEWARK, NEW JERSEY - MARCH 29: Head coach Jon Scheyer of the Duke Blue Devils reacts after defeating the Alabama Crimson Tide during the Elite Eight round of the 2025 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament held at Prudential Center on March 29, 2025 in Newark, New Jersey. (Photo by Ben Solomon/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)
NCAA Photos via Getty ImagesDuke coach Jon Scheyer was the captain of an NCAA championship team at the school in 2010, but he has yet to win a national championship as the head coach despite winning multiple ACC regular-season and tournament titles.
Two years ago, Cooper Flagg, who won the Naismith Player of the Year Award, and Duke were favored to win the title but surrendered a big lead to Houston late in the national semifinals.
Last year, Naismith Award winner Cam Boozer and Duke held a 15-point halftime lead on UConn in the Elite Eight before losing, 73-72, on a 35-foot buzzer-beater from freshman Braylon Mullins. (The two teams will meet again Nov. 25 in Las Vegas).
With Flagg and Boozer both now in the NBA, Duke enters this season without a National Player of the Year candidate but still has a loaded roster highlighted by 7-foot-2 freshman center Joaquim Boumtje Boumtje, the potential No. 1 pick in the 2028 NBA Draft, Wisconsin transfer John Blackwell and returners Caleb Foster, Cayden Boozer and Patrick Ngongba II.
Duke’s five-man recruiting class was ranked No. 2 nationally and, in addition to Boumtje Boumtje, features five-star forward Cameron Williams, five-star guard Deron Rippey Jr., four-star wing Bryson Howard and four-star big man Maxime Meyer.
“It’s been built on nothing being promised to any of these guys when they came back or when they came in,” Scheyer told ESPN of another star-studded class. “It’s built on how to continue to evolve with our program and where we need to go. And a big focus for us has been the 98%. It’s all the ways you impact the game without the ball. And that’s been a big thing for us.
“We’ve got a great group, great character, and I think we can have good depth, but depth means nothing if you don’t sacrifice and you don’t have the connectedness. So that’s what we’re focused on.”
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS - APRIL 07: Head coach Todd Golden of the Florida Gators celebrates after defeating the Houston Cougars in the National Championship of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at the Alamodome on April 07, 2025 in San Antonio, Texas. (Photo by Alex Slitz/Getty Images)
Getty ImagesAs for Florida, the Gators were in contention to win back-to-back NCAA titles last year before being stunned by Iowa in the second round of the NCAA Tournament when Alvaro Folgueirashit a go-ahead 3-pointer with 4.5 seconds remaining to pull off the upset.
Florida returns Thomas Haugh,a Naismith Player of the Year candidate who averaged 17.1 points and 6.1 rebounds last season, along with Alex Condon, Rueben Chinyelu, Boogie Fland and Denzel Aberdeen, who came off the bench for the national championship team in 2025 before transferring to Kentucky. A circuit court judge recently granted the 6-foot-5 Aberdeen a temporary injunction, providing him with a fifth year of college eligibility.
“I think there’s no excuse for Florida to not sit at No. 1 most of the year,”one coach told CBSSports. “Eighty percent of scoring back with three true frontcourt monsters that probably eclipse most teams’ total salaries by themselves.”
Said another college coach: “Just so much coming back, adding Aberdeen is a missing piece at guard they needed last year that already knows the system. Massive upgrade over(Xaivian) Lee. I do think they will have to deal with unreasonable expectations and we will see if there’s a such thing as a group staying together for too long?”
UConn, Illinois, Michigan State and Arizona all figure to be among the teams challenging for an NCAA championship during a year in which many fifth-year players have been granted eligibility by courts after they sued under the NCAA’s new “five-for-five” eligibility model.
Pitino, for one, thinks the level of college basketball is as high as it’s been in recent memory
“I think the last three years have been the best college basketball played in college basketball in the last 20 years because it’s older, it’s wiser, it has better talent on the court because of the foreign influence, because of some of the G League players,” Pitino said.
“So what’s taken place on the court is outstanding. To get to that point has been really difficult.”
This article was originally published on Forbes.com