Le Journal

We’re just beyond the halfway point of the 2025-26 college basketball season, and while I’m still not ready to tell you who’s going to be cutting down the nets on the first Monday of April, I’m ready to tell you that it’s absolutely going to be one of the eight teams below. 1. Michigan Don’t let the mild shakiness of the last couple weeks distract you from the fact that, at their best, no team in college basketball has appeared to be more unstoppable this season than the Michigan Wolverines. Dusty May’s team is the first in the history of the sport to beat three different ranked opponents by 30 or more points, a feat they had completed on Jan. 2. At the moment, they have 10 wins by 20 or more points, eight wins by 30 or more points, six wins by 40 or more points, and one win of more than 50 points. Michigan has the best overall defense in the sport, a bona fide star in Yaxel Lendeborg, a freshman sensation in Morez Johnson, a unicorn big man in Aday Mara, and a battle tested floor general in Elliot Cadeau. The pieces for the program’s long-awaited second national title are all there. 2. Arizona While Michigan might be the betting favorite to win the national championship, the Wolverines are not college basketball’s No. 1 team at the halfway mark. That honor belongs to unbeaten Arizona, which also possesses perhaps the sport’s top overall resume. The 18-0 Wildcats are a perfect 7-0 in Quad I opportunities, and figure to be 20-0 overall when they travel to play fellow title contender BYU on Jan. 26. In an era where the three-point shot is being prioritized more than it ever has before, Arizona has played perfect basketball this season while mostly ignoring the perimeter. Only two of the 365 teams in Division-I have shot fewer three-pointers than the Wildcats have so far this season. That doesn’t mean ‘Zona isn’t fun to watch. The Wildcats dominate the glass, take (and make) high-percentage shots via beautiful halfcourt offense, and have a quartet of the most entertaining players in the sport in Koa Peat, Brayden Burries, Jaden Bradley and Motiejus Krivas (Tobe Awaka’s cool too). They’ve also made more free-throws than their opponents have taken, but that’s not particularly entertaining. 3. Houston The Cougars came within one made shot (and one avoided late-game collapse) of winning the program’s first national title last season. Despite that heartbreak, Kelvin Sampson’s 2025-26 squad appears fully capable of playing itself back into that position a few months from now. The Cougars’ only loss at the moment remains a narrow defeat at the hands of Tennessee at the Players Era Festival in Vegas back in November. UH is 11-0 since then, and figures to have a gaudy record in mid-February when it enters a critical three-game stretch where it will face Iowa State, Kansas and Arizona. How they handle those three should give some critical pre-March insight into just how much of a national title contender the Cougs are. This team has star power in the form of Emmanuel Sharp, Milos Uzan and freshman sensation Kingston Flemings, as well as one of the best defensive players in the sport in Joseph Tugler. Toss in arguably the best coach in the sport, and you have plenty of reasons to believe this could be the year Houston finally earns the one distinction that has eluded them. 4. UConn After back-to-back national championships, the Huskies never felt like a realistic title contender in 2024-25. Few people expected that to become a trend, and Dan Hurley has made the ones who did look foolish. Connecticut is 18-1 with their lone defeat coming by 4 to Arizona in a game where leading scorer and rebounder Tarris Reed did not play. They’ve won 14 straight since then, including Quad I wins over Illinois, Kansas, Florida and Seton Hall. UConn might not have the potential to be as dominant as they were in ‘23 or ‘24, but they’re certainly good enough to hoist the same trophy those Husky squads did. 5. Purdue They aren’t quite the juggernaut some…

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