{"id":79584,"date":"2026-04-07T16:04:57","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T16:04:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/isport.com.ng\/?p=79584"},"modified":"2026-04-07T16:04:57","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T16:04:57","slug":"duke-is-early-favorite-to-win-2026-27-college-basketball-national-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/isport.com.ng\/?p=79584","title":{"rendered":"Duke is early favorite to win 2026-27 college basketball national championship"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Duke is early favorite to win 2026-27 college basketball national championship<\/h1>\n

The Michigan Wolverines defeated the UConn Huskies\u00a069-63 on Monday night<\/a>\u00a0to claim their first national championship since 1989 \u2014 an impressive feat for head coach Dusty May and a team that went 37-3. But they won\u2019t be favored at sportsbooks to repeat as champions.<\/p>\n

Oddsmakers at\u00a0BetMGM<\/a>\u00a0have installed the have installed the Duke Blue Devils as the early favorite to win the 2026-27 national championship at +800, just ahead of the Florida Gators (10-1). Michigan also has 10-1 odds to repeat.<\/p>\n

Florida won the national championship in 2024, but Todd Golden\u2019s squad was upset in the second round of this year\u2019s tournament 73-72 by No. 9 seed Iowa.<\/p>\n

Jon Scheyer\u2019s Duke team is the favorite at several other sportsbooks as well \u2014 despite the likely losses of Naismith Player of the Year Cameron Boozer, and standouts Isaiah Evans and Patrick Ngongba. Duke opened with 11-1 odds at BetMGM on Monday night, but moved to +800 overnight.<\/p>\n

The Blue Devils were the No. 1 overall seed in this year\u2019s tourney but suffered another devastating loss, falling 73-72 on a last-second 3-pointer by UConn\u2019s\u00a0Braylon Mullins that will live on in tournament lore<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Michigan State and Arizona are tied for the fourth-best odds at 14-1.<\/p>\n

UConn, which made the national championship game for the third time in the past four seasons, also has 15-1 odds. The Huskies covered the spread in the title game for the 19th time in their past 20 NCAA tournament games.<\/p>\n

Illinois, which lost to UConn in the Final Four, opened with 22-1 odds.<\/p>\n

Sportsbooks did well on futures, as St. John\u2019s, Arkansas and long-shot Miami (OH) were knocked out of the tournament. No. 1 seed Arizona had the most bets and wagers to win it all at BetMGM. Sportsbooks cut Michigan\u2019s odds drastically after the Wolverines\u2019 performance in November out in Las Vegas, so Michigan winning was a good result for the books.<\/p>\n

One bettor at DraftKings stood to win just over $1 million if UConn beat Michigan, as he had a $77,000 wager on the Huskies at 13-1 to win it all. Unfortunately, UConn came up just a little short.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Duke is early favorite to win 2026-27 college basketball national championship The Michigan Wolverines defeated the UConn Huskies\u00a069-63 on Monday night\u00a0to claim their first national championship since 1989 \u2014 an … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":79585,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[188],"class_list":["post-79584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","tag-national-championship"],"yoast_head":"\nDuke is early favorite to win 2026-27 college basketball national championship - iSport<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Michigan Wolverines defeated the UConn Huskies\u00a069-63 on Monday night\u00a0to claim their first national championship since 1989\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/isport.com.ng\/?p=79584\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Duke is early favorite to win 2026-27 college basketball national championship - 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