First Look at 2024 College Basketball Futures Odds: UConn Favored to Repeat as Champs

Connecticut, who wasn’t even on the board to win the 2022-23 national title the day after Kansas won the 2022 NCAA men’s basketball championship, is now favored to cut the nets down again next year. One day after securing their fifth national championship (all since 1999), the Huskies lead the 2024 NCAAB futures odds to win the Final Four next year in Glendale, Arizona.

With March Madness behind us and seven months to prepare for another college hoops season, let’s look at the futures odds for the 2024 NCAAB championship along with some potential value bets.

Before we get to some early analysis, here’s a look at the top futures odds for the NCAAB 2024 national championship, courtesy of FanDuel.

Players declaring for the NBA draft and the transfer portal can obviously alter these rankings, but we’ll go with what we know (and a little bit of what we assume) as of this early juncture off the offseason.

First, regardless of whether Adama Sanogo, Donovan Clingan, or Andre Jackson Jr. stay, history is not in UConn’s favor. There hasn’t been a back-to-back national champion since Florida pulled off the feat in 2006-07. But in a wild tournament, UConn was the constant. Once things got down to the Final Four, the Huskies were heavily favored to win the national title and did so.

The Huskies, however, will give it a good shot. They have an excellent recruiting class coming in, which is led by three top-100 prospects and is ranked fourth overall by 247 Sports.

While UConn won the big prize, it was Marquette who won both the Big East’s regular-season and tournament titles–handing the Huskies their last loss in the process.

The Golden Eagles were picked to finish ninth in the league that has now captured three of the last seven national titles, but Shaka Smart’s team broke through. Led by All-American Tyler Kolek, the entire starting five from this past year’s team should be returning and looking to improve after being upset by 7-seed Michigan State in the second round this year.

While it seems like having Duke second on the list at +1300 is a trap to draw in casual bettors, the Blue Devils should improve on their 5-seed from this year’s tournament and second-round exit in Jon Scheyer’s debut as head coach. Prior to the early exit, Duke did win the ACC tournament as a 4-seed. Tyrese Proctor and Mark Mitchell are returning, and Jeremy Roach could as well. Five incoming five-star recruits will help fill in the blanks.

Michigan State, who beat Marquette in the second round and narrowly lost to 3-seed Kansas State in the Sweet 16, was again a factor in March under head coach Tom Izzo, and a top-five recruiting class should lead to a step up for the Spartans next year. Jeremy Fears and Xavier Booker are two names to know who will be in green and white–the latter a potential NBA lottery pick.

We did mention that the Huskies weren’t on the board at this time last year. However, UConn was available at +8000 at the start of the regular season and +2000 on March 1 at BetMGM.

Surprise Final Four entrant Florida Atlantic (+3000) will not be a one-and-done like Cinderella Final Four teams before them. The Owls, who only lost four games all year and entered the NCAA Tournament as a 9-seed, should have all five starters back for head coach Dusty May.

There is perhaps no team better in dealing with flux and change than Arkansas (+2500). But those are qualities that are necessary to win in today’s era of college basketball. The Hogs took some time this year to figure out their best lineup, but they were solid once they did so, knocking off 1-seed Kansas in the process. The Razorbacks have also been consistent, reaching the Sweet 16 after an Elite Eight appearance in 2022 under Eric Musselman.

Colorado (+5500) has had a lot of attention on its football team thanks to Deion Sanders, but Boulder will house a heck of a hoops team next year as well. The Buffaloes, who reached the second round of the NIT this year, have two All-Pac-12 players returning along with TCU transfer Eddie Lampkin Jr. Cody Williams, who has the potential to be a lottery pick in the NBA draft, is also being added to a strong group of role players.