Expectations are high for Purdue Boilermakers Going into the season, they were ranked No. 1 in the preseason Associated Press poll for the first time, and bookmakers are putting extra pressure on them to be preseason national championship favorites.
Purdue is the unanimous favorite to win the national championship ahead of the 2025–26 men’s college basketball season, with +850 odds showing at ESPN BET. Last season’s runners-up, the houston cougarESPN is the consensus second favorite at +1000 on BET ruler (+1100), Yukon (+1200) and kentucky (+1500) Out of the top five.
Purdue did not open as a favorite when it came to the 2025 national championship game in April, but a productive offseason and hype around a talented team led the Wooden Award preseason favorite. Braden Smith (+400), has drawn a groundswell of support: The Boilermakers have the highest share of the national championship handle in both ESPN BET and BetMGM.
“There’s been a lot of discussion around Purdue this offseason with bringing back three players and addressing some weaknesses in the portal,” Caesars College basketball analyst Patrick Berbert told ESPN. “So, it seems like they’ve been the most popular team so far.”
“In recent years, the transfer portal has become one of the biggest factors in preseason odds as we evaluate how teams are balancing adding talent with roster continuity and chemistry,” ESPN BET senior director Adrian Horton said over email. “You can have a team that performed well last season completely revamped with new faces, which may seem like an upgrade on paper, but we need to see it in game action.”
Conversely, Duke opened as the favorite for the 2026 national championship, but the Blue Devils saw their odds lengthen after losing all five of their 2024–25 starters, including Cooper Flagg, the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA draft. The third best 8.1% of bets are backing the Dukes at BetMGM, but they have only taken 6.4% of the money there.
Meanwhile, Houston has maintained its position as second-best on the odds board and has received healthy support from the public, attracting the most bets (13.6%) on ESPN BET. BetMGM considers the Cougars its third-largest liability, as it took the second-most bets and managed there.
Last season’s national champions, the Florida GatorsCome into the 2025-26 campaign with +1600 odds, sixth on ESPN BET’s odds board, which is a marked improvement compared to their +6000 odds last season. This season’s Gators have attracted only moderate action from bettors, but bettors will be looking for a longshot team on the board that can position themselves as a favorite with early impressive play like Florida did last season.
“Most years, there’s a sleeper team that wasn’t expected to do well and they’ll play really well early on,” Berbert said. “So it’s really important, just on a day-to-day trading basis, to be able to recognize these teams when they’re exceeding expectations and not be slow to react, especially in the futures market.”
