Kentucky opens as early 2024 NCAA title favorite

As the 2022-23 college basketball season comes to a close Monday evening, the way-too-early projections for 2023-24 are already starting to roll out. And would it surprise you to know the Kentucky Wildcats are at the very top of the list to open the offseason?

Eh, probably not. That’s what happens when you bring in the nation’s top-ranked recruiting class, one featuring four five-star standouts and the 2023 Mr. Kentucky Basketball — a McDonald’s All-American in his own right.

Sure, it’s exhausting to talk about preseason expectations and rankings when postseason success has been so hard to come by in recent years — zero second-weekend runs since 2019 is a tough pill to swallow. It doesn’t help that rosters across college basketball are nowhere near close to being finalized, with the transfer portal running rampant and stay/go decisions underway for everyone. Kentucky’s upcoming roster today could look completely different tomorrow, next week and next month.

But here we are, 2023 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship night, a matchup featuring No. 4 seed UConn and No. 5 seed San Diego State, battling for their One Shining Moment on April 3. And as things stand leading up to the title game, Kentucky is the early favorite to win next year’s championship trophy.

The Wildcats open with 11-1 odds (+1100), followed by Duke and Purdue at 12-1, UConn at 14-1, Kansas and Marquette at 16-1, Creighton at 18-1 and Arizona and UCLA at 20-1. Those odds are courtesy of sportsbetting.ag, with the complete list of title contenders shown below.

Again, Kentucky’s roster isn’t even remotely close to being finalized, with stay/go decisions to come from Oscar Tshiebwe, Chris Livingston, Antonio Reeves, CJ Fredrick, Daimion Collins and Ugonna Onyenso, Sahvir Wheeler (transfer), Jacob Toppin (draft) and Cason Wallace (draft) being the only players with confirmed plans.

Who are the Wildcats pursuing in the transfer portal? John Calipari has no idea yet.

“I have not done much in the portal this year,” the Kentucky head coach said this week. “I know our name is out there, but I’m still trying to figure out what my team looks like. … We’ve got a lot of guys that will probably put their name in, so I’ve got to weave through that first to figure out who we have coming back.”

Yet here we are, 2024 National Champions. Sharpie. Hang it in the Louvre.

(It’s going to be a long offseason, isn’t it?)