2025 Men’s College Basketball National Championship Odds: UConn favored over No. 1 Kansas

The first AP Top-25 preseason poll was released on Monday, and the Kansas Jayhawks come in at No. 1 ahead of back-to-back reigning champs UConn.

Despite debuting at No. 3 in the preseason poll, UConn (+800) is the favorite to win the national championship in 2025, which would be the Huskies’ third-straight title. Only one team in men’s college basketball history has won three titles in a row – UCLA, who won seven-straight from 1967 to 1973.

No. 1 Kansas (+1000) and No. 7 Duke (+1000) are joint-second in the odds, followed by No. 2 Alabama (+1200), then No. 4 Houston and No. 9 North Carolina at +1600.

A year ago, Kansas, Duke and Purdue topped the preseason poll, while Connecticut was ranked No. 6 heading into 2023/24. The Huskies ended up beating Purdue in the national championship game, 75-60.

Alabama and NC State – the other two teams to reach the last four in the 2024 tournament – were No. 24 and unranked in last year’s preseason poll, respectively.

See below for a full list of the newly-released preseason poll, along with each team’s odds to win the 2024/25 national championship.

2024/25 AP Top 25 Preseason Poll

Odds displayed within this article were correct at the time of writing and are subject to change.

David Schneidman

• • 
  •