Knee-Jerk Reactions to the Start of the 2025-26 Men's College Basketball Season
The 2025-26 men's college basketball season has only just begun. We're two-and-a-half weeks into the five-month journey to crown the next national champion.
However, we've seen enough to jump to conclusions that fly in the face of preseason expectations.
After months of portal watching, injury-update checking and exhibition-box-score dissecting to concoct a "definitive" ranking of teams heading into the season, most of it goes straight into the trash as we have knee-jerk reactions to early surprises and upsets.
Is this already destined to be the best race for the Wooden Award since maybe Redick vs. Morrison 20 seasons ago?
Is the Big Ten's national championship drought finally going to end?
Does the Big East just kind of stink out loud?
Is it possible the SEC's best team is one that has won one regular-season title and one conference tournament title in the past half-century?
Lots of juicy overreactions to talk about, but let's start with a mid-major league that might be better than ever.
WCC Could Be a 4-Bid League
1 of 8
The West Coast Conference typically is a multi-bid league, sending at least two teams—usually Gonzaga and Saint Mary's—to 11 of the past 13 dances. However, it has only been a three-bid league on three occasions (2008, 2012 and 2022) and has never received four invitations to the NCAA tournament.
In what will be Gonzaga's final season before joining the reanimated Pac-12, could that be changing?
Up top, the Zags have been stupendous. Even if you throw out the 122-50 annihilation of Southern Utah and the season-opening 98-43 rout of Texas Southern, they've won their other three games against power-conference opponents (Oklahoma, Creighton and Arizona State) by an average margin of 18.0 points.
Saint Mary's is also doing its thing, winning each of its first four games by a margin of at least 21 points. The Gaels have been a single-digit seed in each of the past four NCAA tournaments, and it's looking like sophomore guards Mikey Lewis and Joshua Dent are more than capable of keeping that going.
That's old hat, though.
What's interesting about the WCC in the early going is that next tier of Santa Clara and Loyola Marymount, neither of whom has been to the NCAA tournament in the past 30 years nor suffered a loss yet this season.
LMU hasn't played anyone great yet, but three straight wins over UTEP, Troy and UC Santa Barbara (two in true road games) is a major step up from how they usually fare. In fact, their Simple Rating System mark of 6.96 on Sports Reference is the highest it has been since the legendary 1989-90 team led by Hank Gathers and Bo Kimble.
Meanwhile, Santa Clara is playing its best basketball since the 1960s, already beating each of Xavier, Nevada and McNeese by double digits. The Broncos made waves this offseason with their acquisition of former G League guard Thierry Darlan, but he hasn't even made that much of an impact for them. They're just a solid team that dominates in the paint.
Throw in San Francisco as a team that has averaged 23.0 wins over the past four years and the addition of a respectable Seattle squad from the WAC and the top half of the WCC is looking mighty good.
Vanderbilt Might Win the SEC
2 of 8
This is a two-pronged knee-jerk reaction, the first being that Vanderbilt might be better than it has been since at least 1993.
KenPom (19th), Bart Torvik (21st) and Evan Miya (24th) all had the Commodores as a top 25 team heading into the season, but only three of the 61 AP voters felt the same. They've crept up to "fourth team out" in the most recent poll, but people are still sleeping on a team that is averaging 101.5 points per game.
When people do finally start paying some mind to the 'Dores, though, we're going to have some fun with a team that relies heavily on three perimeter weapons named Tyler.
Tyler Nickel was their best three-point shooter last season (81-for-200) and is already leading the charge again this year with 14 triples in four games. Tyler Harris made 49.5 percent of his 91 three-point attempts last year with Washington and has made multiple threes in each game thus far. And Tyler Tanner has been the early breakout star, scoring at least a dozen in each game after averaging 4.4 off the bench over the final 20 games of last season.
Transfers Duke Miles (Oklahoma) and Frankie Collins (TCU) have been sensational additions to the backcourt, each averaging at least three steals and five assists per game. And watch out for UNC transfer Jalen Washington, if he ever figures out how to harness his potential.
Here's the second prong, though: The SEC doesn't have any elite teams this season.
This league had two No. 1 seeds, two No. 2 seeds and a No. 3 seed among its 14 offerings to last year's dance. But the SEC's highest-ranked team at the moment is Florida at No. 10—and the reigning champs haven't even looked all that good with their two biggest offseason additions (Boogie Fland and Xaivian Lee) shooting a combined 8-for-51 from downtown.
Maybe Florida remains that top team in the league again. It could also be any of Alabama, Kentucky or Tennessee. But after being picked 13th in the preseason media poll, Vandy just might be in the mix.
Both Georgetown and Syracuse Might Actually Matter Again
3 of 8
Did you know the last time either Georgetown or Syracuse finished a regular season (including conference tournaments; excluding NCAA/NIT) with more than 20 wins was when the Hoyas earned a No. 4 seed with 21 wins in 2015?
Listen, 21 wins isn't asking much from a pair of once-proud programs, especially considering there has only been one case in the past decade in which either one put together a nonconference schedule that ranked top-90 in the nation in overall strength (per KenPom)—that being Syracuse's 75th-toughest slate in 2021-22, which resulted in its first sub-.500 season since 1968-69.
After a decade down in the dumps, though, these staples of the "Old Big East" are both sitting at 4-0.
For the Orange, the competition thus far—Binghamton, Delaware State, Drexel and Monmouth—has been anything but competition. However, the dynamic duo of Donnie Freeman and Kiyan Anthony has been phenomenal, Georgia Tech transfer Naithan George might be the best point guard they've had since Tyler Ennis was running the offense in 2014 and getting JJ Starling (17.8 PPG last season) back into the lineup (leg injury) on Tuesday raises this team's ceiling a few more feet.
And, boy, the competition is coming. Syracuse will face Houston, Kansas and a TBD third opponent in the Players Era Festival before hosting Tennessee in its first game back from Las Vegas. If the Orange manage to go 2-2 during that gauntlet, the hype train will start chugging along.
Meanwhile, Georgetown already has impressive wins over Maryland and Clemson and will draw Dayton, North Carolina and either BYU or Miami within the next 17 days to possibly really validate this impressive start. The veteran duo of KJ Lewis and Malik Mack in the backcourt has been awesome, and the rotating cast of five forwards/centers standing at least 6'7" has been quite the deterrent to the opposition's would-be layup attempts.
The shame of the matter is they terminated this rivalry right before it got good again. The Hoyas and Orange had played nonconference games in each of the past 10 seasons, but now that there might actually be some national interest for a change, it's gone.
On the plus side, this means they're allowed to square off in a No. 8 vs. No. 9 seed first-round showdown for the ages.
Even With Georgetown's Resurgence, the Big East Is a Train Wreck
4 of 8
As mentioned, Georgetown has wins over Maryland and Clemson. Connecticut also scored a quality win over BYU in its first legitimate test of the season.
However, the Big East's fourth-best win through the first 16 days of the regular season was—without an even remotely close challenger behind it—Villanova's home win over KenPom No. 110 Duquesne.
That's not for lack of opportunity, either. While both the Hoyas and Huskies entered Wednesday undefeated, the rest of the league was 0-11 against KenPom Top 100 foes. (Plus DePaul's brutal home loss to Buffalo, which would be easily the biggest misstep by any major-conference team thus far if Boston College hadn't also lost to Central Connecticut on the same day.)
Two seasons after infamously sending just three teams to the 2024 NCAA tournament, is it possible the Big East could be—with only UConn and St. John's presently ranked top-40 on KenPom—a two-bid league this year?
Probably not, as there's still plenty of time and opportunity to right the ship.
However, Feast Week looms all sorts of large here.
UConn, Villanova and Marquette will not be playing in a bracketed MTE, while St. John's and Creighton will each face Baylor and Iowa State on the first two days of the Players Era Festival. That plausibly could be four more losses on Monday and Tuesday.
Beyond that, we shall see how the bottom half of the league fares in its combined 13 games across the Greenbriar Tip-Off (Butler), ESPN Events Invitational (Georgetown), Rady Children's Invitational (Providence), Maui Invitational (Seton Hall), Charleston Classic (Xavier) and Emerald Coast Classic (DePaul).
None of the six is expected to win its event, and several may well go winless, which would be bad news for the Big East as a whole.
There Will Be At Least 3 Freshmen Named Consensus First-Team All-Americans...
5 of 8
This isn't so much a knee-jerk reaction as it is a delayed realization of how absurd-by-recent-standards this would be.
Cooper Flagg was, of course, a first-team All-American last year, but he was the only freshman named a first-team, second-team or third-team All-American by the AP, USBWA, NABC or Sporting News.
The previous year, there wasn't a single freshman on any of those All-America teams. And aside from Flagg last year, the only freshman named a consensus first-team All-American in the past six years was Cade Cunningham in 2020-21.
As of last week, though, the three early favorites to win the 2026 Wooden Award were Duke freshman Cameron Boozer, BYU freshman AJ Dybantsa and Kansas freshman Darryn Peterson.
Peterson's odds have changed as a result of the hamstring injury that has caused him to miss the past three games. But even if he were to drop off the radar, it may well be another diaper dandy taking his place, be it Louisville's Mikel Brown Jr., Tennessee's Nate Ament, Arizona's Koa Peat, North Carolina's Caleb Wilson or Houston's Kingston Flemings.
Yahoo's Kevin O'Connor reported last week: "Some executives around the NBA say that if Flagg had never reclassified and were instead part of this 2026 group, he probably would be the third pick at best but could go as low as fifth or sixth."
Naturally, Draft Twitter was totally level-headed and not at all bewildered in its reaction to that revelation, but it is a real testament to how loaded this year's freshman class is.
But the Wooden Award Winner Won't Be a Freshman
6 of 8
While the freshmen are all the rage, let's just say there are a couple of reasons the previous knee-jerk reaction wasn't that five freshmen will be named first-team All-American.
Those reasons are Texas Tech's JT Toppin and Purdue's Braden Smith.
The former was a unanimous second-team All-American last year, averaging 18.2 points and 9.4 rebounds per game. And as the only returning Red Raider who started at least eight games last year, it is already apparent Toppin will be shouldering an ever heavier load this season.
After missing TTU's season opener against Lindenwood with a lower body injury, he did not look one bit worse for wear in his first two games back, racking up 66 points, 25 rebounds, seven assists, six steals and four blocks against Sam Houston State and Illinois. It's plausible he'll lead the nation in total points and total rebounds, like Purdue's Zach Edey did two years ago.
But speaking of Purdue, Smith is the better candidate for the Wooden Award.
He was a unanimous first-team All-American last year, averaging 15.8 points and 8.7 assists for a team that ended up earning a No. 4 seed in the NCAA tournament. He may well hit those same marks this year, if not improve upon them, for what could be the No. 1 overall seed.
Through four games, Smith has had either 20 points or 10 assists in each. There will eventually be plenty of nights in which he hits both thresholds. And after a seven-year run of Wooden Award winners who averaged way more rebounds than assists, Smith will be a flashback to the days of Jalen Brunson and Frank Mason when he wins.
Watch Out for Saint Louis
7 of 8
Two years ago at Indiana State, Robbie Avila—a.k.a. Cream Abdul-Jabbar, a.k.a. Larry Nerd—was college basketball's cult hero. We're all still a little heartbroken that he and the Sycamores were denied a bid to the 2024 NCAA tournament.
Avila then followed head coach Josh Schertz to Saint Louis for the 2024-25 campaign, but the Billikens never quite figured things out, suffering 15 losses and finishing outside the top 100 on KenPom.
Schertz hit the transfer portal hard to correct that, bringing in guys from Virginia, Xavier and Boston College, as well as a walking bucket from Northern Illinois in Quentin Jones. However, the early breakout star alongside Avila has been returnee Amari McCottry, who seemingly cannot miss from inside the arc.
And now they might have something cooking, averaging nearly 100 points per game with a much more well-rounded attack than last year's three-headed offense.
Most of their early competition has been unremarkable—though they did smoke a respectable Grand Canyon team—but so is most of their competition all season. Per KenPom, the Billikens are only a projected underdog for one game in the next three months. And even that Jan. 7 trip to VCU should be a tight one.
Not suggesting we need to fire up the undefeated watch or anything just yet, but Saint Louis could be the class of the A-10 this year and might give us the better-late-than-never Avila-led Cinderella story.
The Big Ten's Title Drought Will Mercifully Come to an End
8 of 8
Dating back to 2001, the ACC and the Big East have each won eight national championships, the SEC has won four, the Big 12 has won three and even the American won one in its first year of existence.
But the Big Ten infamously hasn't won it all since Michigan State in 2000.
For a while, at least the Big Ten could say, "Well, the Pac-12 hasn't won since 1997!" But the Big Ten absorbed a quartet of Pac-12 teams in that great splintering and now stands alone as an 18-team major conference with a 25-year title drought.
Plenty of close calls, including eight trips to the title game. They just keep coming up short, though.
Until now.
The likeliest candidate to end the drought is Purdue. We've already lauded Braden Smith, but Trey Kaufman-Renn is another Wooden Award candidate, Fletcher Loyer can make it rain like few others, and South Dakota State transfer Oscar Cluff is a walking double-double. They're still figuring out the rest of the rotation, but this team can legitimately go at least nine deep and could be the best Purdue ever.
Once healthy, Illinois is going to be a certified problem, too. The Illini beat Texas Tech last week even without three players who were supposed to be factors this year. This entire roster has legitimate three-point range, most of it standing 6'6" or taller. This team may well be Brad Underwood's magnum opus.
Michigan is going to be darn good once it figures out how to best utilize Yaxel Lendeborg. Indiana's back. UCLA is supposed to be back. Michigan State is always a contender. And don't sleep on USC or Wisconsin, both of whom are uncommonly old and ridiculously tall with plenty of talent to boot.
Last year's SEC tournament felt like it could have been the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament, and the last few rounds of this year's Big Ten tournament could feel like the Elite Eight.
.jpg?w=600 "🚨 Giants Picking 5th and 10th")
