Is Duke The Early Favorite For The 2016 National Championship?

Now that the college basketball season is over, many people, including Las Vegas, are looking forward to next season to see which teams will be the favorites to cut down the nets in 2016. Duke is still riding high off of their fifth National Championship that they won on Monday night, but it is never a bad time to look to next year and see what everyone thinks of your team heading into next season.

Bovada put out their odds for every team to win the 2016 Championship and Duke is tied with Kansas for fifth best odds at 16/1. The teams ahead of Duke include two ACC teams, (Virginia and North Carolina) Kentucky and Maryland.

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North Carolina is the betting favorite in Vegas’ very early odds because they gave National runner-up Wisconsin a run for their money in the Sweet Sixteen, and return every key player. They have 6/1 odds to win the title while Kentucky, even with all of the questions about who might return, are at 8/1. Maryland and Virginia are both 12/1.

Duke is similar to Kentucky in that there are a lot of questions about who will return. It is assumed that both Jahlil Okafor and Justise Winslow will enter the NBA draft because they are both projected to be top five picks. Earlier in the season it seemed like Tyus Jones would have been a lock to return, but after a huge National Championship game he has said Okafor, and Winslow’s decisions will have a big effect on his own decision.

Regardless of who returns for Duke they will certainly not be slouches. We do know they will bring back Grayson Allen, a top fifteen recruit last year who came on strong in the Final Four. Role players Matt Jones, Amile Jefferson, and Marshall Plumlee will also be back, and when you add in top recruits Luke Kennard, and Chase Jeter you have a pretty good team right there.

Duke will also be bringing in Sean Obi for next year, a transfer from Rice who, in his one year there, averaged 11 points per game and more than nine rebounds per game.

These odds are obviously extremely premature and don’t mean much, they are just a great talking point now that the college basketball season is over. Duke obviously is getting a ton of respect after winning this years Championship, but there are still a lot of roster decisions to be made by recruits and by the freshmen that led Duke to cutting down the nets before we can really know what to expect from the 2015-16 Blue Devils.

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