Here’s what the early 2026-27 college basketball rankings say about Kentucky
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Sportsbooks list Kentucky as long shots, with odds 28-1 to 40-1.
- Early rankings vary: UK ranges from No.19 to unranked across outlets.
- UK’s standing depends on transfer additions, key returns and draft decisions.
In any year, making college basketball rankings in April for the following season is a fool’s errand.
In 2026, it’s downright impossible to attempt the task and expect to end up with a result that’s anything close to accurate.
But even in the transfer portal era — a time when rosters aren’t close to being settled until weeks or even months after the season ends — the tradition of national outlets rolling out their “too early” Top 25 lists continues.
And those lists started coming in first thing Tuesday morning.
With so much uncertainty in the college basketball world, perhaps the best barometer of the teams to beat for the 2026-27 season is what the bettors think will happen. Those opinions (like those Top 25 lists) will fluctuate wildly in the coming weeks as rosters settle, but there are already odds on who will cut down the nets a year from now.
Those odds are not in Kentucky’s favor.
These early numbers, which have been posted for wagers on some sportsbooks for weeks now, can be viewed as a reflection of what the betting public thinks of UK’s chances to put a team capable of winning the national championship on the court in Mark Pope’s third season as head coach.
The oddsmakers set the lines, but those odds will change if enough people wager one way or another, and the Cats go into the first few days of the offseason as long shots to win it all in 2027.
Of the major betting sites, ESPN’s sportsbook had Kentucky at the shortest odds Tuesday morning, making the Cats a 28-1 shot to win the 2027 NCAA title. That placed them in a tie for 13th on the list.
The early odds on UK at FanDuel (30-1), bet365 (35-1), DraftKings (35-1) and Caesars (40-1) were even longer, with none of those betting apps putting the Cats any higher than 14th on the list of national champion possibilities.
Duke is the early 2027 favorite, according to all five of those sportsbooks, with odds ranging from 7-1 to 8-1. Michigan, which won the 2026 NCAA title Monday night, was No. 2 on most of those lists, with Arizona and Florida also prominently featured at the top of the odds.
Those schools were also the four No. 1 seeds in this year’s NCAA Tournament.
Caesars had its 2027 title odds posted before the 2026 tournament concluded, and Kentucky was 35-1 on that list heading into the Final Four, so the Cats’ number has actually gotten longer in recent days.
Based on the history of odds at Sports-Reference.com — records that go back to the 2008-09 season, which was Billy Gillispie’s final year as UK’s head coach — Kentucky has never had national title preseason odds of longer than 35-1. That number came in Pope’s first season as head coach two years ago, when he had to build an entire roster from scratch.
UK will once again rely on the transfer portal for a good portion of its rotation for next season, but Pope is hoping to retain key players like Malachi Moreno (who will test the NBA draft waters first), Collin Chandler and Kam Williams (who committed to return to UK on Tuesday) from his 2025-26 roster.
Andrija Jelavic became the latest Kentucky player to enter the portal Tuesday, though he is leaving open the option to return to Lexington after going through the transfer process.
The fluidity of college basketball rosters makes forming those early Top 25 rankings difficult, though those lists can also be viewed as a referendum on general expectations for roster construction.
So far, Kentucky is not well regarded by the national outlets.
Top 25 rankings for 2026-27
Here’s a rundown of some prominent college basketball websites and their early 2026-27 rankings as of Tuesday morning, which is also the first day of the two-week transfer portal window:
- ESPN’s Jeff Borzello did not have Kentucky in his Top 25 or among the five teams in the “next in line” category that followed those rankings. Borzello did offer the caveat that these rankings “are likely to go haywire very soon” as transfer portal activity ramps up. Michigan is No. 1 on ESPN’s list, with a projected starting five that includes four key returnees from the national title team plus five-star recruit Brandon McCoy, who committed to the Wolverines during the Final Four.
- The Athletic placed Kentucky at No. 19 on its list, projecting a starting lineup of Chandler, Williams, Moreno and transfers at the point guard and power forward spots, with Trent Noah mentioned as a notable returnee. UK is still waiting on decisions from all of those players, though Moreno has already said he will definitely return to Lexington if he withdraws from the NBA draft, which remains the most likely scenario. “If Mark Pope’s staff can add the right one or two guys, this is a solid roster,” writes CJ Moore, who has Illinois and Michigan at 1-2 in the rankings.
- Kentucky is also absent from USA Today’s early Top 25, which features Michigan State at No. 1, with Duke, Michigan, Florida and Arizona rounding out the top five. Alabama and Arkansas are also in the top 10 on that list. John Calipari’s Razorbacks are generally viewed as a top-10 team in the early rankings, with Meleek Thomas and Billy Richmond among the top expected returnees and No. 2 overall recruit Jordan Smith coming in as a lead guard.
- Both Yahoo Sports and On3.com have Kentucky at No. 25 in their early rankings, with CBS Sports insider Jon Rothstein placing the Cats at No. 28 overall on his list, which includes 45 teams. Other national outlets that don’t have UK in their rankings at all include Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report, Field of 68 and Hoops HQ, which has a list put together by longtime college basketball analyst Seth Davis.
This story was originally published April 7, 2026 at 10:49 AM.
