Men's NCAA Championship 2025 Updated Title Odds Going into Final Four
The 2025 men's NCAA tournament that was once a field of 68 hopefuls has been whittled down to just four remaining contenders.
Maybe the best-ever collection of contenders, though, in this historic quartet of No. 1 seeds.
Who is going to emerge victorious from this gauntlet?
Our national championship odds for each of the remaining four teams are based on a combination of how good each squad was during the regular season, how it has looked through four NCAA tourney games and how difficult its remaining path is.
Obviously, all of the remaining paths are brutal, as this is almost indisputably the greatest Final Four field ever assembled. But the fact that Houston has to face Duke as a 5.5-point underdog on Saturday doesn't bode well for the Cougars.
Teams are listed in ascending order of likelihood to win the title. Our odds sum to 100 percent and are not intended to reflect actual betting lines in Vegas, which even at this stage of the tournament typically sum to around 115 percent.
Houston Cougars
1 of 4
How They Got Here: 78-40 vs. No. 16 SIU-Edwardsville, 81-76 vs. No. 8 Gonzaga, 62-60 vs. No. 4 Purdue, 69-50 vs. No. 2 Tennessee
To the surprise of precisely no one, defense has been the driving force of Houston's sixth consecutive multiple-weekend stay in the NCAA tournament and its second Final Four appearance of the Kelvin Sampson era. Gonzaga made things interesting late, but it never could rally from being held to 27 points in the first half. Purdue's dynamic duo of Braden Smith and Trey Kaufman-Renn was limited to 21 points on 19 shots. And the Cougars basically put Tennessee in a vice grip, with Chaz Lanier and Zakai Zeigler shooting a combined 5-for-27 from the field.
Most Outstanding Player Candidate: L.J. Cryer
The beauty of Houston is you could go five different directions here—six if you include write-in votes for "the defense." MOP usually goes to the leading scorer, though, which was Cryer by a considerable margin over the course of the full season. He struggled (to put it lightly) to find his shot in Indianapolis, going for 20 points on 30 field-goal attempts against Purdue and Tennessee. But with 16 games this season with at least four made triples, including a 30 burger in the second round against Gonzaga, he could catch fire again in San Antonio.
Biggest X-Factor: Can they score enough?
Houston always scores at least 60 points this season, but it has been held to 70 points or fewer in 18 of 38 games, including each of the past two. And aside from that 89-75 loss to scorching hot Miami two years ago, Houston's point totals in NCAA tournament losses under Sampson have been: 63, 59, 58, 51 and 44. This is a much better three-point shooting Houston team than usual, but it is barely top 300 in two-point percentage and well outside the top 300 in free-throw rate.
Title Odds: +600
Auburn Tigers
2 of 4
How They Got Here: 83-63 vs. No. 16 Alabama State, 82-70 vs. No. 9 Creighton, 78-65 vs. No. 5 Michigan, 70-64 vs. No. 2 Michigan State
After averaging better than 85 points per game during its 27-2 start to the season, defense has somewhat become the name of the game for Auburn, holding each of its six SEC/NCAA tournament foes to 70 points or fewer. In each of these past four games, there was a stretch of 5-8 minutes in which the Tigers completely shut down the other team while putting together a game-altering run.
Most Outstanding Player Candidate: Johni Broome
It's going to be really awkward if the Detroit Pistons draft Broome in a few months, because he might not be welcome back in the state of Michigan after going for a combined 47 points and 30 rebounds against the Wolverines and Spartans this past weekend. Those were his 20th and 21st double-doubles of the season. And we've already seen what he can do against every other team still standing: 18 points, 11 rebounds, six assists and two blocks vs. Florida; 20 points, 12 rebounds, three assists vs. Duke; 20 points, nine rebounds, five blocks, three assists and two steals vs. Houston.
Biggest X-Factor: Three-point shooting
The biggest X-factor is Broome's health. If he's limited by that elbow even a little, Auburn could be in a world of trouble. But where did this team's perimeter shooting go? Miles Kelly, Tahaad Pettiford, Denver Jones and Chad Baker-Mazara each made at least 55 triples this season and each has a three-point percentage north of 37 percent, but you wouldn't know it lately. CBM is 5-for-20 in the tournament. Kelly is 3-for-18 over the last three games. Pettiford is 9-for-31 since the beginning of the SEC tournament. Got to get more than just Broome going in order to finish this fight.
Title Odds: +500
Florida Gators
3 of 4
How They Got Here: 95-69 vs. No. 16 Norfolk State, 77-75 vs. No. 8 Connecticut, 87-71 vs. No. 4 Maryland, 84-79 vs. No. 3 Texas Tech
It wasn't always pretty. Both UConn and Texas Tech had the Gators on the ropes and then some. But at 85.8 PPG with the type of resiliency and self-belief that comes from scoring road wins over Auburn and Alabama before winning the SEC tournament title, Florida has looked, for the most part, like the red-hot contender everyone fell in love with heading into the Dance. In fact, with Thomas Haugh consistently delivering in a big way off the bench, you could make the case Florida is looking even better now than it did two weeks ago.
Most Outstanding Player Candidate: Walter Clayton Jr.
This AP first-team All-American has been so clutch for the Gators. He scored 13 of his 23 points against UConn in the final eight minutes. And with Florida trailing Texas Tech 71-61 with less than six minutes to go, Clayton again delivered 13 late points (of his 30 total) in that come-from-behind victory. He's 31-for-35 from the free-throw line in this tournament, and he has made multiple three-pointers in every game played since the beginning of February.
Biggest X-Factor: Turnovers, out of nowhere
Heading into the tournament, ball security was a major strength for the Gators, averaging just 10.2 turnovers per game, with a year-to-date turnover margin of +41. But they had 12 giveaways against each of UConn and Texas Tech and 17 against Maryland, sitting at minus-17 over those last three games. They're so good on the glass and so good at getting to the free-throw line that they've been able to overcome it so far, but allowing the Red Raiders to score 22 points off turnovers really should have been their undoing.
Title Odds: +300
Duke Blue Devils
4 of 4
How They Got Here: 93-49 vs. No. 16 Mount St. Mary's, 89-66 vs. No. 9 Baylor, 100-93 vs. No. 4 Arizona, 85-65 vs. No. 2 Alabama
If you were one of the disillusioned Duke haters who insisted the Blue Devils merely looked good this season because the ACC was so very bad, do you prefer your crow cooked or raw? Duke dominated both Baylor and Alabama, ending the first half of the former on a 24-6 run and never trailing in the latter, holding an elite offense to 65 points. Even with Caleb Love on one of his patented heaters, there was never much of a chance that he and Arizona were going to pull off that upset, either.
Most Outstanding Player Candidate: Cooper Flagg
Flagg is likely going to be named the Wooden Award winner a couple days after the tournament ends. He may well secure a little M.O.P. hardware along the way, too. He had a bit of an off-night on Saturday while dealing with Alabama's Grant Nelson and Cliff Omoruyi, but he still went for 16 points, nine rebounds and three assists. For the tournament, he's averaging 19.5, 7.8 and 5.0, respectively, plus seven total blocks. Any concerns regarding the ankle injury suffered during the ACC tournament have been put to rest.
Biggest X-Factor: Could an opponent simply get hot?
Alabama couldn't do it, but Arizona sure did. And while Duke has allowed more than 70 points just seven times this season, it went 4-3 with each of the four wins coming by a single-digit margin when it did happen. Should the Blue Devils run into Florida in the national championship, what a battle that would be with an offense that has scored at least 77 points in 17 consecutive games, averaging north of 88 during that stretch. And no matter how good a defense is, sometimes an opponent just hits some tough shots and gets into a groove. Granted, we saw in the Arizona game that Duke can just get even hotter, but the eternal unpredictability of three-point defense is an X-factor all the same.
Title Odds: +125
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