Expectations are high for the Purdue Boilermakers going into the season, ranked No. 1 in the preseason Associated Press poll for the first time, and bookmakers are giving them the added pressure of being preseason national championship favorites.
Purdue is the consensus favorite to win the national championship ahead of the 2025-26 men’s college basketball season, showing +850 odds at ESPN BET. Last season’s runners-up, the Houston Cougars, are the consensus second-favorites at +1000 at ESPN BET, with Duke (+1100), UConn (+1200) and Kentucky (+1500) rounding out the top five.
Purdue didn’t open as the favorite around the time of the 2025 national championship game in April, but a productive offseason and hype around a talented team, led by Wooden Award preseason favorite Braden Smith (+400), has created a groundswell of support: The Boilermakers have garnered the highest share of national championship handle at both ESPN BET and BetMGM.
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“There’s been a lot of offseason buzz around Purdue with them bringing three players back and addressing some weaknesses in the portal,” Caesars college basketball trader Patrick Berbert told ESPN. “So, they’ve been the popular team it seems 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 did well last season completely re-tooled with new faces, which may look like an upgrade on paper, but we need to see it in game action.”
Duke, by contrast, opened as the favorite for the 2026 national championship, but the Blue Devils saw their odds lengthen after they lost all five of their 2024-25 starters, including No. 1 overall pick Cooper Flagg, to the NBA draft. A third-best 8.1% of the bets are backing Duke at BetMGM, but they’ve taken only 6.4% of the money there.
Meanwhile, Houston has simply maintained its standing as second best on the odds board and has received healthy support from the public, attracting the most bets (13.6%) at ESPN BET. BetMGM considers the Cougars to be its third-largest liability after it took the second-most wagers and handle there.
Last season’s national champions, the Florida Gators, come into the 2025-26 campaign with +1600 odds, sixth on ESPN BET’s odds board, which is a marked improvement over the +6000 they had going into last season. This season’s Gators have attracted only moderate action from bettors, but bookmakers will be on the lookout for a longer team on the board that could make a run to favorite status with early impressive play like Florida did last season.
“Most years, there is a sleeper team out there that wasn’t expected to do well and they’ll play really well early on,” said Berbert. “So it’s really important, just on a day-to-day trading basis, to be able to spot these teams when they’re exceeding expectations and to not be slow to react, especially in the futures market.”
