NCAA Tournament 2025 Odds: Duke, Houston, and Auburn Are Title Front Runners

• Houston has again dominated its conference, securing the Big 12 regular season title for the second consecutive year.

• Since it locked up the SEC regular season championship, Auburn will likely carry the top overall seed into the NCAA Tournament.

• After cruising through their respective schedules, the Auburn Tigers, Houston Cougars, and Duke Blue Devils appear poised for deep NCAA Tournament runs.

Conference tournaments have officially begun, meaning that the NCAA Tournament is approaching. March Madness is among us!

While anything can happen in March, we will likely have a non-UConn champion for the first time since the 2021-22 season.

This year, Auburn, Houston, Duke, Florida, and Tennessee have strung together impressive campaigns and could challenge for an NCAA Tournament championship!

Let’s break down the top teams with the best NCAA Tournament odds and analyze which ones have the best chance to take home the hardware in 2025!

NCAA Tournament Odds

Find the most current NCAA Tournament odds in the table below and place your bets at some of the best sportsbooks available.

NCAA Tournament Predictions - NCAA Favorites to Win

With the conclusion of the 2023-24 college basketball campaign, we will look ahead at next season and analyze the top teams and their respective odds, as well as make our official NCAA Tournament championship predictions:

Duke Blue Devils

Duke has been as good as advertised to start the season, with freshman sensation Cooper Flagg leading the way for the Blue Devils.

Flagg has logged the most points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks per game for the Blue Devils during their 2024-25 campaign.

And the scariest part is that he continues to improve with each passing game.

Duke’s defense is ranked in the country’s top five (KenPom), anchored by Flagg and 7-foot-2 freshman Khaman Maluach. 

In fact, the Blue Devils hold opponents to the third-fewest points per game on the third-lowest effective field goal percentage.

However, there have been some questions regarding the level of their competition this season, particularly in conference play.

Still, the Blue Devils logged plenty of strong non-conference wins earlier in the year and have only improved on both ends of the floor since then.

The sky is the limit for this team and they have plenty of talent to run the table in March.

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Houston Cougars

To no one’s surprise, the Houston Cougars again have the nation’s top defense, ranking first in KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency metric, first in opponent effective field goal percentage, and first in opponent points per game.

The Cougars don’t blow out many teams, but that has a lot more to do with their pace of play (they are the fourth-slowest team in the country) than their execution. 

As usual, the Cougs are one of the top offensive-rebounding teams nationally, sitting at sixth in OREB%. 

One massive change for Houston has been its elite 3-point shooting, which ranks five (3P%) in college basketball. 

The NCAA Tournament favors a physical team like Houston that constantly plays with a sense of urgency and does all the little things.

This could be the Cougars’ year to win it all.

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Auburn Tigers

The Auburn Tigers are in the midst of one of the great offensive seasons in college basketball history, boasting an adjusted offensive efficiency rating just shy of 130.0, per KenPom.

In fact, since 1997, a higher rating has not been recorded throughout an entire season. 

Johni Broome has been the engine for this Auburn team, leading the Tigers in points, rebounds, assists, and blocks per game. 

If Cooper Flagg weren’t playing this season, Broome would be the surefire Wooden Award frontrunner.

Broome is joined by five other double-digit scorers: Chad Baker-Mazara, Tahaad Pettiford, Denver Jones, Miles Kelly, and Chaney Johnson. 

That group helps the Tigers average the fifth-most points per game on roughly 48% shooting from the field and 36% from 3-point range.

Auburn is also one of the best offensive-rebounding teams, and it rarely turns the ball over on that end of the floor.

If the Tigers don’t win the NCAA Tournament, it will likely be due to the defensive end of the floor, where they do not currently rank in the top ten nationally.

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Who Will Win the NCAA Tournament - My Pick

Auburn Tigers

Until teams can figure out how to slow down this Auburn offense, I’m backing the Tigers to win the 2025 NCAA Tournament.

Auburn is on pace to have the highest adjusted offensive efficiency recorded on KenPom’s site, which includes the nearly-undefeated Kentucky Wildcats and Gonzaga Bulldogs.

Between Johni Broome, one of the frontrunners for the Wooden Award, and their abundance of talented role players like Denver Jones, Chad Baker-Mazara, Tahaad Pettiford, and Miles Kelly, the Auburn Tigers have the firepower to go all the way.

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Who Won the NCAA Tournament in 2024

The UConn Huskies became the first team to win back-to-back National Championships in the NCAA Tournament since the Florida Gators did it in 2006 and 2007. Florida had three very talented future NBA players on those teams: Joakim Noah, Al Horford, and Corey Brewer.

NCAA Tournament History

The NCAA Tournament was founded in 1939, making it 85 years since the inception of one of the most popular sporting events in the world. In its beginning stages, the NCAA Tournament only had eight teams but has since expanded to 68 teams as of 2011, when the “First Four” games were introduced. There are two ways for teams to get into the NCAA Tournament: winning their conference tournament or receiving an at-large bid.

There are 32 conferences in Division I basketball, meaning 32 teams punch their ticket before “Selection Sunday,” completely avoiding the “sweat” of waiting to hear their name called. The remaining 36 teams are “at-large,” which is awarded for having a successful season and winning meaningful games.

Despite having not won a National Championship since 1995, the UCLA Bruins have the most titles of any college basketball team, with 11 titles. During his tenure, legendary UCLA head coach John Wooden won 10 National Championships with the Bruins. Kentucky (8), North Carolina (6), Duke (5), UConn (5), and Indiana (5) rank second through fourth (three-way tie), respectively. 

Past NCAA Tournament Winners

Listed below are the past 15 NCAA Tournament champions, starting with the most recent champions. Take a look.

How to Choose the Best Sportsbook for Betting on the NCAA Tournament

Several factors determine how to choose the best sportsbook for betting on the NCAA Tournament. First, you should always consider which sportsbook has the best odds for the bets you want to place. If you wish to place a number of bets during the NCAA Tournament, it might make sense to have multiple online sportsbooks to ensure you get the best value possible.

Beyond finding out who has the best odds, you should also consider which sportsbooks offer the best welcome bonus, what their payment options are for depositing and withdrawing funds, the user interface of their apps, and much more!

The table below details some of the advantages of BetMGM, Caesars, and FanDuel. Check it out.

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How to Read NCAA Tournament Winner Odds

Understanding odds can get confusing if you are newer to the betting scene. If a team’s betting odds have a minus in front of them, they are a favorite; if the betting odds have a plus in front, they are an underdog.

For example, if the Houston Cougars are -115 to make the Final Four, then they are considered a favorite (greater than 50% chance of making it). You would have to bet $115 to win $100.

However, if you are betting the Purdue Boilermakers to win the National Championship at +750, you would only have to bet $100 to win $750 because they are significant underdogs to win six consecutive games in the NCAA Tournament.