8 Storylines Entering the 2026-27 College Basketball Season
By Sam Federman and Jonathan Lidskin
Eligibility Chaos Looms
Today is the first day of the season, and yet, we still have no idea whether certain players will be able to play college basketball this season. The NCAA’s age-based eligibility rules left out the high school class of 2022. Those players, though, still want to play college basketball. Many of them will. A summer full of lawsuits, injunctions, temporary restraining orders, stays, and late commitments has gotten us to this point. We will have players who start the season eligible and become ineligible. We will have players who start the season ineligible and become eligible.
A few notable five-in-five players include Donovan Dent (LSU), Darrion Williams (Texas Tech), Malik Reneau (Miami), Keyshawn Hall (St. John’s), Jaxon Kohler (BYU), and the currently ineligible RJ Godfrey (Arizona).
The NCAA Tournament expands to 76 teams
The dreaded day arrived in April. We knew it was coming. There will be eight additional teams in the NCAA Tournament this year. 76, not 68, teams will compete for the national title. It means that we’ll get great mid-majors pushed further down the bracket. A team that would traditionally be a 15 seed may now be a 16 seed, and a team that would be a 13 is now a 14. That makes upsets much less likely.
Even with expanded access to the tournament, it’s hard to believe that many of the additional bids would go to worthy mid-majors, rather high-major slop that has already shown us time and time again why they shouldn’t be in the tourney.
This storyline will change how we discuss Bracketology all year long. It changes the way we consume the NCAA Tournament and fill out our brackets as well.
North Carolina’s Michael Malone Experiment
The last time North Carolina hired a men’s basketball coach with no ties to the program, it was 1952. From Dean Smith to Bill Guthridge to Matt Doherty to Roy Williams to Hubert Davis, the Tar Heel family led the program for 65 years. But when Davis was fired in March following a collapse against VCU in the NCAA Tournament, UNC left the family. But it wasn’t for an elite college coach. It was for somebody who’d never been a college head coach at all.
Spurned by Tommy Lloyd, Ben McCollum, and others, North Carolina hired former Nuggets head man Michael Malone, who led Denver to an NBA title. His roster? Underwhelming. His credentials? Unique. The stakes? As high as possible at one of the sport’s biggest programs.
Is Mark Pope on the Hot Seat?
Mark Pope has won 46 games, including three in the NCAA Tournament, during his first two seasons at Kentucky. But that’s not enough for Wildcat fans. Kentucky lost eight conference games only twice in 15 years under John Calipari, but has done it twice in a row under Pope. In an NIL era where Kentucky has the financial might to put together one of the nation’s most expensive rosters every year – they’re spending over $20 million this season – merely being a top 20 or 30 team isn’t enough. They need to be title contenders.
Pope might need to make the Sweet 16 in order to keep his job. He might need to finish top 4 in a loaded SEC to keep his job. Because that’s simply how high the standards are in Lexington.
A Revamped Big East
The Big East has had just three NCAA Tournament teams in two of the last three years. This season, seven of the league’s 11 teams enter the season with NCAA Tournament expectations. UConn and St. John’s aside, the league has upped its investment in basketball in the revenue-sharing era. CBS Sports reported that the average Big East roster is more expensive than the average roster in every league besides the SEC.
Villanova expects to make it back to the dance. Marquette finally went into the portal after a disastrous season, pairing acquisitions with star PG Nigel James. Providence and Creighton have new head coaches expected to make an impact, with the Friars already making waves in 2027 recruiting too. Xavier is looking to take a big leap in year two under Richard Pitino.
Even DePaul has its best roster in years.
Seven bids are absolutely in play for the league.
Is This Finally Duke’s Year?
It feels weird to say “finally” when Jon Scheyer has only been the Head Coach at Duke for four seasons, but with how elite Duke’s teams has been over the last couple of years, they are bound to break through eventually. Duke elected to go older than it has been in recent seasons with three returning starters, plus multiple veterans off the bench. It even added a big time transfer with John Blackwell coming over from Wisconsin.
Duke will still pair some sensational freshman with the veterans as 17-year old phenom Joaquim Boumtje Boumtje sure to play a pivotal role for the Blue Devils. Deron Rippey Jr. will be one of the team’s best defenders as well. Duke has its’ deepest and oldest team in years and as a result, this could be the year that they cut down the nets after the final buzzer of the season.
The Pac is BACK
After a two year hiatus, the Pac 12 is back and boy is it an exciting league. The rebirth of the “Conference of Champions” include multiple Mountain West additions, a basketball powerhouse, two old Pac 12 schools and a wildcard from the Sun Belt. Gonzaga is the overwhelming favorite to win the league, but it will certainly be challenged in games by other teams like Utah State, San Diego State and Colorado State.
The new Pac 12 will include just nine members, but will feature plenty of fierce competition. The league is not a high-major conference with a handful of teams that can make deep tournament runs, but having the conference back with the late tip times will feel so good.
LSU and Will Wade are hated everywhere
Maybe the biggest storyline in the sport since July is the roster construction of LSU. After the season was over, Will Wade left Raleigh and NC State after just one season to go back to the place that fired him. Wade’s first roster is what some would call the most questionable roster in college basketball history. It includes multiple “5 in 5” court rulings, a couple of international players and former NBA draft picks/pros.
Putting it simply, Will Wade put together a team that will be the most hated in college basketball history. It will be more hated than any team a blue blood has put together and the part we are just getting around to: Could the team be good? They are certainly talented, but who knows what the chemistry looks like. I won’t judge any opinion of this LSU team and if certain guys become ineligible and eligible throughout the year, it will be hard to form any sort of concrete opinion on this team.
