Owen Short is a sophomore who is studying quantitative economics. He can be reached at owen.short@tufts.edu.
Officially a week into the college hoops season, the storylines are already rolling in. As usual, there weren’t many ranked matchups, but the ones we did have offered good insight into the year ahead. Let’s take a look at three early storylines.
The first day of the NCAA hoops season is less than a week away. We’ve already had our first taste of basketball, with a plethora of great NBA games kicking off the league’s opening week. Not only that, but the college preseason exhibition games have been highly competitive this year. This is almost entirely thanks to the rule change implemented in January, which allows these matchups to be streamed and officially scored for the first time.
With about three weeks to go until the opening tip of the college hoops season, we finally have the first official Associated Press Poll of the 2025–26 season. Most of the names and general rankings aren’t very surprising, given all the time spent analyzing these now mostly finalized rosters, but ...
Just like everything else in college basketball, the pecking order of the top conferences seems to shuffle from year to year. With the constant churn of the transfer portal and a fresh round of coaching changes, this feels like the right moment to take stock of the Power 5. The goal: to predict which leagues are poised for the most success, whether by racking up tournament bids, producing true championship contenders or simply standing out in overall competitiveness.
The first tip-off of the 2025–26 college basketball season comes on Nov. 3. With just under six weeks left, the excitement leading up to opening day is starting to build up. Still, we don’t have official preseason rankings, schedules are being finalized and, apparently, the coaching carousel is still taking its course. While we wait for the actual basketball to start, these are the offseason storylines I found to be interesting and also important for this year of college hoops.
Just about a month into the season, it feels like we’ve seen every top ranked team drop a game, especially during Feast Week[a]. We didn’t have as many ranked matchups as past years, but that is mostly a product of all the upsets in these Thanksgiving tournaments. As a result, the AP rankings for this upcoming week have seen quite a bit of volatility. Here are the teams that feasted and the ones that were left hungry.
Two weeks into the season, we are starting to see some very interesting storylines develop. With most teams having about four games under their belts, the rankings have expectedly been shaken up. Although there weren’t as many high-level matchups as I would have liked, there has been no shortage of news in the sport. These are the headlines that most stood out to me.
After waiting about eight months for the first tipoff of the college men’s basketball season, we have finally made it. Although opening day doesn’t typically offer many competitive, high-level matchups, there were still some surprisingly consequential results and upsets. Most notably, No. 6 Gonzaga blew the brakes off of No. 8 Baylor, winning by 38 points.
With opening night still a few weeks away, there isn’t much going on in college basketball. Teams right now are preparing for the long season ahead and there is little to no movement in regards to personnel. But there are still some headlines regarding recruiting, conference realignment, and more. Here are the stories that I found to be the most significant and interesting.
As we enter October, not much is happening regarding college basketball news. Luckily, however, this means that essentially all coaching jobs and rosters have been filled out. This being the case, here are my preseason individual award picks for the 2024–25 college basketball season.
