With the men's college basketball season about a week away, ESPN's Jeff Borzello and Myron Medcalf have released preseason tiers that sort 75 teams into 11 groups. The format, they argue, suits a year when a wave of eligibility lawsuits across the country could swing a team's outlook dramatically. It gives more room for uncertainty than a strict 1-25 ranking, which ESPN published earlier this month.
The top tier holds three national championship favorites: Florida, Duke and Illinois. Florida returns four starters, three of whom were key players on the Gators' 2025 title team, including Thomas Haugh, Alex Condon and Rueben Chinyelu. Denzel Aberdeen is currently eligible after an injunction following a year at Kentucky, and coach Todd Golden is said to have the top team in the country even without him.
Duke brings back four key players from last season's No. 1 team, adds the second-best recruiting class in the nation and landed Wisconsin guard John Blackwell, rated the best guard in the transfer portal. Illinois kept five key players, supplemented them through the portal and high school ranks, and is coming off the program's first Final Four in 20 years. The writers note that David Mirkovic is an All-American when healthy.
The second tier of Final Four contenders includes Arizona, UConn, Texas, Michigan State, Tennessee and Virginia. Arizona has lost Big 12 player of the year Jaden Bradley and two first-round picks, but returns Big 12 preseason player of the year Motiejus Krivas and adds five-star recruit Caleb Holt. UConn retained Braylon Mullins with a significant NIL deal, while Texas added Marcus Spears Jr., the top recruit in the 2027 class who reclassified up a year.
The third tier, second-weekend threats, is framed around one key question for each team. For Kansas, it is who will be eligible, including former Purdue star Trey Kaufman-Renn, who recently won a court injunction to play a sixth year. Michigan, the reigning national champion, has lost its head coach, three lottery picks and five-star recruit Brandon McCoy to a season-ending knee injury, leaving Mike Boynton Jr. to find new contributors in his first year.
Tier IV is reserved entirely for eligibility limbo, because hundreds of players still lack a definitive answer. Texas Tech and St. John's top the group and become legitimate Final Four contenders if their pending players are cleared. Gonzaga, BYU, Iowa State, Oklahoma and Ole Miss also depend on rulings, and LSU could be an NCAA tournament team in Will Wade's first season back in Baton Rouge, even though RJ Luis Jr. is not likely to play for the Tigers.
Tier V covers seven teams that narrowly missed ESPN's preseason top 25, among them Purdue, North Carolina, Indiana, Nebraska, Villanova, Ohio State and Saint Louis. Purdue must replace program legends Braden Smith, Trey Kaufman-Renn and Fletcher Loyer, though coach Matt Painter has not received a seed lower than No. 4 in the NCAA tournament since 2016. North Carolina begins a new era under Michael Malone and leans heavily on its incoming transfers.
The sixth tier features dangerous bubble teams, led by NIT champion Auburn, which hopes to follow Memphis and Xavier in thriving the year after an NIT title. Wisconsin lost John Blackwell and Nick Boyd but has reached the tournament in five of the past six years, and Minnesota gets more intriguing if Cade Tyson, who averaged 19.6 points per game, wins a fifth season of eligibility. West Virginia and Texas A&M, led by scorer PJ Haggerty, round out the notable names.
