Candid Coaches: Who will be college basketball’s best team in 2024-25?

CBS Sports college basketball insiders Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander spent a month surveying 100-plus Division I men’s basketball coaches for our annual Candid Coaches series. They polled across the sport’s landscape: some of the biggest names in college basketball, but also small-school assistants in low-major leagues. Coaches agreed to share unfiltered opinions in exchange for anonymity. We asked them 10 questions and will post the results over a three-week span.

Kansas coach Bill Self has kept his men’s basketball program at or near the tip-top of the sport for more than two decades. He’s won two national championships, made four Final Fours, secured 16 Big 12 regular-season titles and eight Big 12 Tournament championships while only finishing outside of the top three of the conference standings one time in the past 21 years.

That one time was last season, though.

Needless to say, Self grew frustrated as things unfolded — mostly because of a lack of depth that proved crippling after leading scorer Kevin McCullar Jr. suffered an injury that limited him for weeks before the 6-foot-5 wing was eventually shut down before the Big 12 Tournament. The result was Self’s first 11-loss campaign since he coached Tulsa to a 19-12 record in 1998. Furthermore, the Jayhawks’ 89-68 season-ending loss to Gonzaga was the program’s second-most lopsided defeat in NCAA Tournament history.

“We could have done a much better job as a staff of putting more guys out there that we could play,” Self said following the season, noting how KU entered the Big 12 Tournament with just eight healthy scholarship players. “And so that’s something that I’ve thought about for a long time.”

It’s also something he’s fixed.

While securing the return of starters Dajuan Harris, KJ Adams and Hunter Dickinson, Self and his staff got super-busy in the transfer portal and added five experienced players — namely AJ Storr from Wisconsin, Rylan Griffen from Alabama, Zeke Mayo from South Dakota State, Shakeel Moore from Mississippi State and David Coit from Northern Illinois. Add 5-star freshman Flory Bidunga to the mix, plus lightly used reserve Jamari McDowell and 4-star freshman Rakease Passmore, and depth should not be an issue for Kansas this season (even after sophomore Elmarko Jackson suffered a season-ending knee injury).

It’s that combination of depth, talent and elite coaching that compelled me to move Kansas to No. 1 in the CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 back in April. Still, we wanted to see what college coaches think. So we began our 2024 Candid Coaches series by asking more than 100 Division I coaches the following question:

Who will be the best team this season?

Others receiving votes: Arizona, Baylor, Gonzaga, North Carolina

Quotes that stood out

On Kansas

• “They had a down year for them — and I think Bill Self’s press conference at the end of the year said it all. He will be more motivated and locked in than ever before. They have a strong group of returners, with Hunter Dickinson being a potential player of (the) year. AJ Storr could prove to be a huge pickup for them, with Griffen from Alabama being a major sleeper too.”
• “They have a phenomenal core of experienced players in Dajuan Harris, Hunter Dickinson and KJ Adams. They also add AJ Storr and others to go with that incredible home-court advantage.”
• “They absolutely reloaded. Self ain’t going through what he went through last year!”
• “Kansas returned plenty of experience and filled holes with high quality transfers.”

On Alabama

• “That machine is rolling. [This] year will be their year to cut the nets.”
• “They have the resources to build great rosters — and a coach (Nate Oats) who understands how to maximize them. They got their first Final Four. A championship is next. Just a matter of time.”
• “[They] return [almost] everyone of note and added really good players to the mix.”

On Houston

• “Even with the loss of heart-and-soul Jamal Shead, I think they have an embarrassment of riches with their kind of guys. LJ Cryer and Emanuel Sharp could be the best all-around backcourt in the country, and you get [Terrance] Arceneaux and [Joseph} Tugler back healthy, an experienced Big 12 guard in Milos Uzan, and the return of two key ‘Houston’ bigs in J’Wan Roberts and Ja’Vier Francis. And that’s before you add two top-70 [freshmen] in Mercy Miller and Chase McCarty. It’s a team tailor-made for Kelvin Sampson to mold into a smothering, nasty, talented, Houston juggernaut.”
• “For me, it’s easy. All the other schools are great — but as sure as the sun will come up in the morning and go down in the evening, Kelvin Sampson will have a group that will do everything in their power to exceed expectations. They don’t believe in potential. They do believe in WORK and toughness. … The Cougars will be in the discussion for a team capable of going all the way if health is on their side.”

On Duke

• “How good is Cooper Flagg going to be? That’s the question. But I think he’ll be great, and there are enough really good pieces around him for Duke to win it all. That’s the most talented team in the country. Just gotta see if it comes together. But the talent to win it all is there.”

On UConn

• “Until somebody knocks UConn off the throne, I’m going with them. I know the team will be different and there will be unreal expectations, but they were playing at a different level than everybody else last year in the tournament. I know a lot of it had to do with their personnel, but it also had a lot to do with Dan Hurley and his coaching staff.”

The takeaway

As you can see from the breakdown of votes, the coaches we polled largely agree with the the Top 25 And 1 — where Kansas, Alabama and Houston are also first, second and third. Interestingly, this is the second straight year coaches have told us they expect Kansas to be the sport’s best team.

That didn’t work out so well last season. But, again, injuries were mostly to blame. As many coaches told us over the past few weeks, KU now appears positioned for a fine bounce-back season.

Question: What do you make of UConn only getting 7.7% of the vote?

That equates to fifth in our poll, which actually lines up with where the Huskies are in the Top 25 And 1. So I’m in no position to argue with the voters. But it should be noted that the reigning back-to-back champions are technically the favorite to win the 2025 NCAA Tournament at +900 (followed by Kansas and Duke at +1000). Rest assured, Hurley either already has noticed, or will soon notice, the discrepancy and brilliantly use it to motivate his mostly new but undeniably capable team.

Will the Huskies three-peat?

It’ll be difficult, obviously. But I did go back and look at what percentage of the vote UConn got in advance of last season when we asked the same question, and what I found is that only 1.9% of the coaches we polled back then told us they believed the Huskies would be the sport’s best team. UConn then went out and won the Big East regular-season title, Big East Tournament title and six consecutive games in the NCAA Tournament (by double-digits) to collect a second straight national championship. That means 98.1% of the coaches we polled a year ago were wrong to believe somebody other than UConn would win it all. Now Dan Hurley and his staff are preparing to prove 92.3% wrong again this season.

Count them out at your own risk.