Vegas makes Kentucky the early favorite for 2018 title

The dust has barely settled on Kentucky’s Elite Eight run and Las Vegas oddsmakers have already made them the favorite to win next year’s national title.

The Cats are a 10-1 favorite to win the 2018 NCAA men’s basketball title, according the the “College Basketball Future Odds” updated recently by Vegasinsider.com. Six teams, including this year’s national champion North Carolina, runner-up Gonzaga, Louisville, Duke, Kansas and Villanova check in at 12-1.

Kentucky is set to bring in another No. 1 recruiting class according to the Scout.com rankings. The six commits, so far, include 6-foot-6 five-star guard Hamidou Diallo of Putnam Conn., who enrolled early this spring to practice with the team.

The other five-stars are 6-7 forward Jarred Vanderbilt of Houston, 6-8 forward P.J. Washington, of Henderson, Nev., 6-10 center Nick Richards of Elizabeth, N.J., and 6-0 point guard Quade Green of Philadelphia. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, a 6-5 four-star point guard from Chattanooga, Tenn., rounds out the 2017 class.

They will join a Kentucky team that will lose at least two underclassmen to the NBA Draft this year. Freshmen De’Aaron Fox, Malik Monk and Bam Adebayo each declared their intentions to submit their names into the draft this week. Adebayo was the only player to say he will not sign with an agent, keeping his option to return to UK open.

The Cats will also miss seniors Derek Willis and Dominique Hawkins from a team that won this year’s SEC regular season and tournament titles before falling to eventual national champion North Carolina on a buzzer beater in the Elite Eight.

This story was originally published April 5, 2017 at 2:34 PM with the headline "Vegas makes Kentucky the early favorite for 2018 title."