College basketball tournament odds: Who’s favored to win?

Few sporting events in American culture match the chaos and excitement of the men’s basketball tournament. Every year, 68 teams enter a single-elimination bracket, and from there, it’s anyone’s game. A single missed free throw or lucky bounce can send a top seed in the bracket home early, and new Cinderella teams are minted each year. That unpredictability is exactly what makes following the tournament odds so compelling, and so important for anyone trying to make sense of their bracket before the tournament begins.

With the tournament approaching, teams are entering conference-tournament season. For programs unlikely to earn an “at-large” bid, winning the conference tournament is the clearest path, as they will receive an “auto-bid.” Between now and the start of the tournament, bracketologists will update their seeding projections based on team wins and losses, injury reports, and other news.

Traditionally, sports fans like to use sports sportsbooks like BetMGM, or enter into a bracket challenge at work or at school, but prediction markets offer another way to trade on and monitor the odds of the men's basketball tournament. Prediction markets like Kalshi are especially useful here because they reflect the crowd's aggregated judgment, updating implied probabilities as new information lands in real time, not just once a week in a poll.

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When you see Kalshi odds or prices listed for the men’s basketball tournament, what you're really looking at is the implied probability that a team will win the tournament. A team listed at 14 cents to be the men’s college basketball champion has roughly a 14% chance of winning the tournament. The higher the price, the higher the market's confidence; the lower the number, the lower the likelihood that traders expect the team will win it all. 

Prediction markets update these numbers continuously throughout the college basketball season. A contender that loses two games in February can slide from 20% to 5% overnight. Conversely, an underdog that runs the table in its conference play can see its odds improve dramatically before the bracket is set.

Michigan is the consensus favorite, carrying a 25-1 record and the top spot in nearly every advanced rating system. Size, experience, and a 5-0 mark against ranked opponents explain why they command the leading spot in the Kalshi National Champion market.

Key strength: Elite two-way efficiency and a roster that has already won quality road games.

Risk factor: The favorite's burden, so they have a target on their back from every opponent.

Duke enters as the second most likely team to win the men’s college basketball championship, projected as a No. 1 seed in current bracketology.

Key strength: Unmatched ACC recruiting and a backcourt capable of taking over high-pressure games.

Risk factor: Duke has historically underperformed as heavy tournament favorites.

Arizona led early-season markets and remains just two spots behind Michigan. Their offensive efficiency and depth at every position make them a dangerous matchup for anyone they face.

Key strength: Arizona's half-court offense is among the hardest to guard in college basketball.

Risk factor: A brutal late-February schedule could affect seeding and momentum heading into March.

Houston may be the most defensively intimidating program in the bracket. They have historically had the physical advantage over teams, and this year is no different.

Key strength: A suffocating defense that routinely holds opponents well below their season scoring averages.

Risk factor: Their half-court offense can stall against elite defenses, which is a concern if they are down in a tournament game and just have to get a bucket.

Florida enters as the defending national champion, having edged Houston in the 2025 title game. They returned key front-court pieces and remain a dangerous SEC program heading into March.

Key strength: Championship experience and a proven ability to perform under postseason pressure.

Risk factor: Repeating as national champions is extraordinarily rare in college basketball, and they will have a target on their back from last year.

Illinois is one of the Big Ten's most dangerous sleeper candidates, with physicality and a conference-tested résumé that make them a threat in any region.

Key strength: They thrive in physical, defensive-minded environments, exactly what the later rounds of the tournament tend to produce.

Risk factor: Offensive consistency against elite defenses has occasionally wavered (similar to Houston).

UConn brings postseason pedigree few programs can match, having reached back-to-back national championship games and projected as a No. 1 seed in current bracketology.

Key strength: Experience managing the grind of six consecutive elimination wins, something UConn has done more recently than anyone.

Risk factor: Repeating deep runs is hard, and opponents have studied Connecticut's tendencies in detail.

Other teams in contention include Michigan State, Kentucky, Purdue, Auburn, Gonzaga, BYU, and UCLA.

Seeding matters enormously in single-elimination play. A No. 1 seed has won the national championship nearly 60% of the time since regional seeding was introduced in 1979. But the draw matters too: regional placement and likely quarterfinal and semifinal matchups can shift a team's implied probability significantly even before the first game tips off.

Few things move tournament odds faster than a significant injury update. Kansas, for example, has looked like a legitimate title contender with a healthy Darryn Peterson, illustrating how a single player's availability can swing market probabilities by several percentage points overnight. Prediction markets like Kalshi are especially reactive to this kind of news, incorporating it the moment it surfaces.

Advanced metrics, such as KenPom efficiency ratings, adjusted tempo, and defensive efficiency, have become central to evaluating men’s college basketball teams. Teams that rank in the top 10 in both offensive and defensive efficiency consistently outperform their seeds, while programs that rely heavily on three-point variance tend to flame out early despite strong win totals.

Tournament coaching matters in ways that regular-season records don't fully capture. Coaches who have navigated deep postseason runs by managing rotations, adjusting game plans between rounds, and steadying young rosters under pressure carry a real edge. It's a key reason why programs like UConn and Houston hold strong market positions even when their regular-season résumés aren't necessarily the best in college basketball. The men’s college basketball tournament brings out a level of variability that is truly hard to quantify.

Expert analysts bring deep film study and contextual knowledge to their forecasts. But they're working with fixed snapshots, and analysis published on a Monday doesn't automatically update when a key player is ruled out on Thursday. Expert analysis can get “old” quickly once new information breaks.

Prediction markets like Kalshi work differently. Because they aggregate the financial judgment of thousands of participants, they respond to new information almost immediately. Here's how the two approaches compare across key factors:

The most well-rounded picture combines both: use expert analysis to understand why a team is favored, and prediction markets to track how much the crowd believes in them in real time.

No method produces a perfect result because the format is simply too volatile, and history proves this right. No. 12 seeds have historically upset No. 5 seeds at a remarkable rate in the first round, and even the most analytically rigorous models can't fully account for the variance baked into single-elimination play.

That said, the most consistently accurate approaches share a few traits. They rely on efficiency models rather than raw records. For example, a 25-win team from a weak conference is a very different animal from a 22-win team that ran through the Big Ten or Big 12. They weigh recent performance heavily, since a team that has gone 8-2 down the stretch is likely in better shape than its overall record suggests. And they integrate seeding and path analysis, not just first-round games, but the likely second-weekend opponents waiting in the regional.

It's also worth keeping history in mind. Historically, UCLA leads all-time with 11 championships, followed by Kentucky with 8 and North Carolina with 6. UConn and Duke each hold five titles, while Michigan State has claimed two. That postseason track record factors into why markets consistently price these blue-blood programs near the top of college men's championship odds.

Where expert picks diverge most from prediction markets is on upsets. Analysts are often reluctant to publicly back major upsets because the reputational downside is asymmetric. Prediction market participants are putting skin in the game with real money, giving them a financial incentive to identify undervalued teams, which is why market pricing on mid-major darlings often tells a more accurate story than the consensus pundit picks.

With the tournament less than a month away, the picture is coming into focus. Michigan leads the tournament odds heading into the final stretch of the regular season. Arizona, Duke, and UConn all hold legitimate claims to deep runs, while Illinois represents the kind of dangerous sleeper that often emerges once the bracket is set.

What the college basketball odds show today will look different by the start of the tournament. Seeding swings, injury reports, underdogs overperforming, and conference tournament results will move the market. The best way to stay current is to track platforms that update in real time. Kalshi's prediction markets offer exactly that: live implied probabilities across event outcomes, so you can see where the market stands now, not where it stood three days ago.

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