{"id":616520,"date":"2026-02-21T21:58:26","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T21:58:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/616520\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T21:58:26","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T21:58:26","slug":"college-basketball-national-championship-odds-after-ncaa-tournament-early-bracket-reveal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/616520\/","title":{"rendered":"College basketball national championship odds after NCAA Tournament early bracket reveal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Updated NCAA Tournament title odds are out with Michigan<\/a> installed as the frontrunner to win a national championship during March Madness<\/a>, which would mark the program’s first since 1989 under Steve Fisher.<\/p>\n

Saturday’s NCAA March Madness Bracket seeding preview<\/a> came prior to the Wolverines’ showdown at Duke<\/a> and Houston’s<\/a> bout with Arizona<\/a>, three of the four teams graced with No. 1 seeds. Coming off wins over Kansas<\/a> and Houston, Iowa State<\/a> was the most surprising team to garner top-line billing but is not considered one of the favorites to cut down the nets inside Lucas Oil Stadium on April 6, per oddsmakers.<\/p>\n

Winners of 11 straight games, Michigan’s 25-1 overall this season with its only loss coming on Jan. 10 against Wisconsin<\/a>. The only competitive game since for the Wolverines was a 75-72 victory over Nebraska<\/a> a few weeks later, after holding the Huskers scoreless the final 3:20 for their first loss of the campaign.<\/p>\n

Updated odds to win 2026 NCAA Tournament<\/p>\n

Check out the full field of 68 at the CBS Sports\u00a0Bracketology<\/a>\u00a0hub. The odds below are courtesy of FanDuel Sportsbook<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Michigan (+320)<\/p>\n

Ranked No. 1 in the AP poll entering Saturday’s game against the Blue Devils, Michigan coach Dusty May has continued to downplay his team’s spot in the poll<\/a> and has his sights set on something far more important — a deep run in March. Courtesy of a roster UCLA<\/a> coach Mick Cronin called college basketball’s best, Michigan’s five starters all average double figures in scoring, and no team is better defensively in the Big Ten than the Wolverines. May knows this is the most complete team he’s had in coaching, which includes a Final Four appearance at FAU<\/a> to cap the 2022-23 season.<\/p>\n

Duke (+600)<\/p>\n

Duke’s national championship odds will be enhanced with a win over the Wolverines; however, the top priority for the Blue Devils at this point is to maintain their standing as the 1-seed in the East and finish out the regular season with a conference championship. Duke’s lone ACC loss came at North Carolina<\/a>. The rematch with the Tar Heels will be played March 7 before the ACC Tournament begins. Freshman Cameron Boozer<\/a> will be a featured player in March Madness as one of the nation’s premier freshman (22.8 points per game, 10 rebounds, 3.9 assists, 1.7 blocks per game).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Bracketology: 2026 NCAA Tournament committee faces challenges with Michigan, Houston, Florida in same region<\/p>\n

\n David Cobb <\/p>\n

\"Bracketology:<\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nHouston (+600)<\/p>\n

Independent of his future roster worries with the Cougars<\/a>, Kelvin Sampson’s success this season once again revolves around his guard play. Kingston Flemings<\/a> and Emanuel Sharp<\/a> are both providing Houston with 16.5 points per game, and they’re scrappy at the defensive end of the floor. Sampson’s led Houston to the Final Four twice in the last five seasons, but the Cougars are trying to avoid getting tripped up late in Big 12 play after losing Monday night’s trip to Iowa State entering Saturday’s affair with Arizona. A matchup with Kansas on the road looms later this week and the Jayhawks and Cougars battle it out for a 2-seed.<\/p>\n

Arizona (+600)<\/p>\n

The Wildcats started the season with 23 consecutive victories before losses to Kansas and Texas Tech<\/a> this month knocked Arizona off its perch as the nation’s hottest team. The nonconference resume features wins over Florida<\/a>, UCLA, UConn<\/a>, Auburn<\/a> and Alabama<\/a>, truly impressive stuff that reveals a battle-tested squad. Arizona currently holds the same national title odds as Duke and Houston. The Wildcats have appeared in the NCAA Tournament in each of Tommy Lloyd’s first four seasons but haven’t yet advanced beyond the second weekend.<\/p>\n

Florida (+1000)<\/p>\n

Florida maintained its 2.5-game lead in the SEC with its seventh straight win Saturday, a 94-75 drubbing of Ole Miss<\/a> behind Alex Condon’s<\/a> 24 points. It took some time for the Gators to gel this season with three new pieces in the starting lineup after a culture reset of sorts coming off last season’s national title. Following early nonconference losses to Arizona, TCU<\/a>, Duke and UConn, Florida has hit its stride down the stretch with four games remaining before the conference tournament. The red-hot Gators, unblemished in February with six convincing SEC victories, would have to come out of Midwest as the No. 3 seed to reach the Final Four if the season ended to day. Florida sits at +190 to get to Indianapolis in hopes of retaining its crown.<\/p>\n

Illinois (+1100)<\/p>\n

Two of the Fighting Illini’s three conference losses in the Big Ten entering Saturday’s tilt at UCLA have come by a single possession in overtime to Michigan State and Wisconsin, so there’s much to like about a team that has experience in late-game, outcome-deciding situations. Freshman Keaton Wagner<\/a> (18.1 points per game) is an assassin and had his coming out party last month with a 46-point outburst during a win at Purdue<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Iowa State (+1300)<\/p>\n

Very much in the thick of it atop the Big 12, the Cyclones’ recent wins over Kansas and Houston coming out of a disappointing loss at TCU means they’ll have a chance to win the conference down the stretch by winning out. The frontcourt presence of Milan Momcilovic<\/a> and Joshua Jefferson<\/a> gives Iowa State a pair of scoring twin towers who have been matchup nightmares for the opposition throughout the campaign. Coach TJ. Otzelberger had a pair of Sweet 16 appearances at Iowa State that preceded last season’s disappointing loss to Ole Miss as a No. 3 seed in the second round.<\/p>\n

UConn (+2200)<\/p>\n

No surprise to see Dan Hurley’s team among the eight FanDuel<\/a> Sportsbook has installed as +2200 or better title hopefuls. His NCAA Tournament success with two national championships speaks for itself and few coaches nationally get more out of their players than he does. The Huskies’ first home conference loss of the season to Creighton<\/a> earlier this week was in excusable and a bit of a stunner, after which Hurley said his team’s effort defensively was a “joke” and must be immediately corrected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Updated NCAA Tournament title odds are out with Michigan installed as the frontrunner to win a national championship…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616521,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7998,3516,1982,1398,7,17047,217,59401,6133,1397,691,14883,18906,950,2811,7367,7368,64359,3730,53476,79902,1043,41225,81536,231,772,75813,1544,8905,1770,9345,12513,9346,1640,4262,25719,3471],"class_list":{"0":"post-616520","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-alabama-crimson-tide","9":"tag-alex-condon","10":"tag-arizona-wildcats","11":"tag-auburn-tigers","12":"tag-basketball","13":"tag-cameron-boozer","14":"tag-college-basketball","15":"tag-college-basketball-odds","16":"tag-connecticut-huskies","17":"tag-creighton-bluejays","18":"tag-duke-blue-devils","19":"tag-emanuel-sharp","20":"tag-florida-atlantic-owls","21":"tag-florida-gators","22":"tag-houston-cougars","23":"tag-illinois-fighting-illini","24":"tag-iowa-state-cyclones","25":"tag-joshua-jefferson","26":"tag-kansas-jayhawks","27":"tag-kingston-flemings","28":"tag-march-madness-odds","29":"tag-michigan-wolverines","30":"tag-milan-momcilovic","31":"tag-national-championship-odds","32":"tag-ncaa","33":"tag-ncaa-basketball","34":"tag-ncaa-tournament-odds","35":"tag-ncaab","36":"tag-nebraska-cornhuskers","37":"tag-north-carolina-tar-heels","38":"tag-ole-miss-rebels","39":"tag-purdue-boilermakers","40":"tag-tcu-horned-frogs","41":"tag-texas-tech-red-raiders","42":"tag-ucla-bruins","43":"tag-wagner-seahawks","44":"tag-wisconsin-badgers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}