Men’s NCAAB Season Tips Off on Monday

Halloween is here, and that means candy, vampires, and toilet paper on trees over the weekend, and the start of the 2025-27 NCAA College Basketball season on Monday, where we find #1-ranked Florida and #2 Duke both hosting games on the hardwood.

We’ll also look at the monster Men’s 2027 College Basketball Champion winner market, Native American tribes launching their own Kalshi-powered apps, Kalshi offering college admission rate markets as well as covering the 2027 NBA Rookie of the Year Award, NCAAF #3 Georgia vs. #17 Florida on Saturday, and NFL Bears at Seahawks on MNF markets.

The so-called ‘Sports Eclipse’ isn’t complete until the start of the NCAA D1 College Basketball season, and we will officially be in full sports swing on Monday, November 2, when MLB, the NFL, NCAAF, NBA, NHL, NASCAR, F1, PGA, and European soccer leagues will all be in action.

NCAAB provides its own set of challenges for the college hoops bettor, prediction market trader, or modern hybrid of both trading methods, with more teams (365), conferences, and games than any of the other major sports.

One of the best handicapping tools for betting on NCAAB is the KenPom Ratings of these 365 Division I hoops programs, based on Pythagorean expectation. Senor Pomeroy has ACC powerhouse Duke ranked #1 (October 22), with MEAC’s Coppin State at #365.

The Blue Devils are ranked #2 in both the 2026-27 AP Men’s College Basketball Top 25 poll and the Coaches Poll. Patrick Ngongba II and Duke will open the season against Army at Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham, NC, on Monday (ESPNU, Patriot League TV, 6:30 ET/5:30 CT/3:30 PT).

Who’s #1? That’s G Boogie Fland and the SEC’s Florida, who will also open its season on Monday night facing a tougher test than Duke with in-state rival and ACC’s #14 Miami at the Orion180 Tipoff Classic at Benchmark International Arena in Tampa, Florida (ESPN, 6 EST/5 MST/3 PST).

Big dogs Duke and Florida will meet in a month in the annual ACC/SEC Men’s Challenge from the Stephen O’Connell Center in Gainesville, Florida on Tuesday, December 1 (ESPN, 9:30 EST/8:30 CST/6:30 PST).

The 2026-27 NCAAB season will go from November 1, 2026 to Monday, April 5, 2027 and the 2027 National Championship game, when the Men's Division I National Championship game will be played at the Final Four, this year set to be played at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan (April 3, 5).

We will see an expanded 76-team Big Dance field in the new-look March Madness, with Opening Round games tipping off on March 16, 2027, always one of the great weeks on the sports calendar year where seasonal words like ‘brackets,’ ‘Gonzaga,’ and ‘sweeping the glass’ climb into our ears.

Last year, it was Yaxel Lendeborg and Michigan from the Big Ten Conference who won the Men’s national championship, defeating the Big East’s UConn, 69-63, at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, IN, on April 6, 2026, ending the Wolverines' 37-year hoops championship drought.

As we see in the NCAAF futures champion market, the Men’s 2027 College Basketball Champion usually comes down to an expected, high-ranked school from a Power 4 conference (ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, SEC) getting the money, with every other team in the one-life market ending up a loser.

This annual dance may be a profitable strange brew for those buying ‘No’ contracts on prediction markets, but generally bad for the casual fan, the emotional alum of the school, and the action-chasing crowd addicted to the rush of gambling and wanting to be entertained by action.

The polls, sportsbooks futures, and prediction markets all look the same at this lid-lifting part of November, with the usual suspects in the top spots. At Kalshi, Duke (14%) is the favorite, followed by Florida (12%), UConn (8%), Illinois (6%), Michigan State (4%), Texas (4%), and Arizona (4%).

Also getting some respect from traders are Texas Tech (4%), Arkansas (4%), Michigan State (4%), Houston (4%), Louisville (3%), Kansas (3%), Baylor (3%), Tennessee (2%), Virginia (2%), Gonzaga (2%), Alabama (2%), Miami (2%), Michigan (2%), Missouri (1.5%), and Kentucky (1.5%).

The best prices for the ultimate winner in this market are now, but trying to figure out who you think will at least make the Sweet Sixteen and hopefully the Elite Eight or Final Four is the best idea, with the potential of hedging (or selling in PMs) a decent monetary approach.

The smart guys at ESPN say UConn and Houston had the best recruiting classes. In the Age of NIL, teams in both NCAA Basketball and Football bear little resemblance to the teams we saw a year ago, making handicapping, predicting, and even buying apparel a Digital Age crapshoot.

Florida, Illinois, and Michigan State are three worth following, with perennial powers Houston and UConn, as well as Duke and Arizona, as possible Elite Eight candidates. Teams not on my NCAAB radar this year? Alabama, Louisville, St. John's, Texas, Texas Tech, Michigan, Gonzaga, and Virginia.

After so much fear and loathing about prediction markets, four Indian tribes are breaking ranks with most Native American tribes—now making money on legal sports gambling in many US states and demonizing PMs—and have launched their own prediction markets apps with Kalshi.

The four tribes are Alabama-Qussarte Tribal Town in Oklahoma, which is launching PokkeTrades; and Greenville Rancheria (Greenville app). Kletsel Dehe Wintun Nation (Sovereign Edge app), and Alturas Indian Rancheria (AIR MARKETS, Inc. app), all in the state of California.

All four are independent prediction markets powered by New York City-based giant Kalshi, and CNN’s Marshall Cohen reported a rift in the Alabama-Quassault Tribe, with some elders not wanting the app because they see prediction markets as “illegal gambling.”

This increases the number of tribal nations in the US choosing to enter the prediction market industry, much like we saw with DraftKings and FanDuel last year, which also demonized prediction markets and their CFTC-regulated markets before joining the landscape for profit.

Tribal casinos made a record $46.2 billion in gaming in 2025. Still, the larger tribes—like casinos—already have a foothold in the gaming-PM space while smaller tribes like California’s Kletsel Dehe Wintun Nation see PMs as a chance to raise money to help fund clean water projects.

“We aren’t a big gaming tribe that has a ton of economic dollars lying around,” said Kletsel Dehe Wintun Nation’s Eric Wright in an interview with CNN. “At its core, this is about tribal sovereignty and economic self-determination.”

“Other tribes are entitled to disagree with our decision, but they don’t have veto power over our economic future,” Wright said. Currently, around 250 tribal governments in our country operate some 545 gaming facilities in 29 states in the US. And change never stops.

Tribes in the US saw federal funding shrink in the 1970s, so many turned to Bingo, triggering a legal showdown with US states that restricted gambling—similar to the drama we see in the current states vs. prediction markets dual, which may end up in the Supreme Court.

Kalshi has old federal regulators (the CFTC) and plans to let users of its prediction market trade on admission and acceptance rates at some top universities and colleges in the United States.

The targeted institutions include prestigious all eight Ivy League schools: Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, and Yale; and brainiac schools, MIT, Caltech, the University of Chicago, Johns Hopkins, Rice, Stanford, and UC Berkeley (California).

Also on the list are Carnegie Mellon, Vanderbilt, Washington University (in St. Louis), Notre Dame, and Big Ten Conference colleges Northwestern and UCLA.

Many higher education leaders and admissions people, including the National Association for College Admission Counselors and leader Angel B. Pérez didn't like the idea, deeming it a gambling product that could increase student anxiety. This is a knee-jerk, predictable take for many reasons.

But contentions of possible insider trading with those with knowledge of that specific data within admissions can’t be ignored, and we will see where this goes and how popular this new niche idea and market may be. If it sounds incredibly boring to you, you’re definitely not alone, brother.

Now if I could make a 5-leg Combo with the ‘No’ on Cornell admissions, the ‘Yes’ in the Will the U.S. Confirm that Aliens Exist? trade, Paris Saint-Germain to win the 2027 UEFA Champions League, the Rain in Seattle this Month, and the Clayface Rotten Tomatoes Score Above 70, then we’ll talk.

With the start of the new 2026-27 NBA Regular Season comes a new crop of rookies to the world's biggest and most popular professional basketball league, and this year is no different. The NBA Rookie of the Year Award is always a coveted trophy and a solid betting and trading market.

In the 2027 NBA Rookie of the Year Award winner at FanDuel, 2026 NBA Draft #3 pick Cameron Boozer (+210) of the Memphis Grizzlies was the favorite on October 28. Boozer, son of former NBA star Carlos Boozer, played his college basketball on Tobacco Road with the Duke Blue Devils.

Following in trading order in the 2027 NBA ROY market were Warriors F Yaxel Lendeborg (+350), Bulls F Caleb Wilson (+350), Kings G Darius Acuff Jr. (+700), Wizards swingman and #1 pick and AJ Dybantsa (+700), Jazz G Darryn Peterson (+1300), and Clippers G Keaton Wagler (+4000).

Also listed in the NBA ROY futures book at FD: Nets G Mikel Brown Jr. (+7500), Bucks G Brayden Burries (+10000), Hawks G Kingston Flemings (+10000), Thunder C Aday Mara (+10000), Thunder PG Bennett Stirtz (+10000), and Mavericks PG Sergio De Larrea (+15000).

Wilson—my pick to nab the honors—is from North Carolina, Lendeborg from Michigan, Peterson is a Kansas product, top-pick Dybantsa attended BYU, Acuff Jr. is from Arkansas, Wagler and Johnson Jr. both went to Illinois, Brown Jr. went to Louisville, and Burries attended Arizona.

The rookie who ends up with the best stats will likely win this award, and finding effortless chemistry with new teammates and getting enough valuable playing time in the key to attaining those numbers and winning the coveted NBA Rookie of the Year award.

Last year, Mavericks forward, Duke stud and 2025 Wooden Award winner and #1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, Cooper Flagg won this award in a tight race with former Blue Devils G Kon Knueppel (18.5 PPG/5.3 RPG/3.4 APG), who also had a great season popping 3’s for the upstart Hornets.

The best approach is to watch these cats scratch in November and see who has the game and has adapted to the rugged NBA level quickly. Warriors’ rookie Lendeborg's honesty about the flopping and complaining he saw in his first NBA game may make him one of the easy players to like.

The World’s Largest Cocktail Party will be held at Mercedes-Benz Stadium (FieldTurf CORE) in Atlanta, Georgia on Saturday afternoon when QB Gunner Stockton and #3 Georgia (6-1, 4-1 SEC) face RB Jared Baugh and #17 Florida (5-2, 3-2 SEC) in Week 9 (ABC, 3:30 ET/2:30 CT/12:30 PT).

Georgia's lone loss came at home to Auburn in Week 7, knocking the Dawgs from the #1 spot on a strange Saturday that saw five of the top seven ranked teams upset. Florida knocked off Ole Miss, then lost back-to-back games to #25 Missouri and upstart South Carolina.

At Kalshi, Georgia (78%) is the solid choice among traders, with Florida (22%) the justifiable underdog but also in a must-win position at a neutral site. At DraftKings, Georgia are big 10.5-point favorites (down from an opening 11.5) with the Total at 55.5 (UGA -440, FLA +340).

Georgia is a freaky team statistically, ranking #43 in Passing Yards (272.1 YOG) and #31 in Rushing Yards (197.7 YPG) and somehow #4 in Scoring (43.0 PPG), with Black Magic or 22 special teams TDs. The Gators will be desperate here and push a fast pace if behind.

Looking at the last 10 series meetings in this classic NCAAF rivalry, Georgia is an impressive 8-2 but 5-5-0 ATS and lost to the betting number the last 2 meetings (2024, 2025), despite winning both games SU. The Over is 5-4-1, 3-1-0 in the last 4. Georgia's over is 7-3-0 in the last 10.

The last 4 series meetings have seen totals of 82, 63, 54, and 44 points, with the Gators held to 115 rushing yards in both of the last 2 meetings. The Bulldogs have held the Total Yards advantage in the last 5 straight meetings (+184, +145, +227, +80), partially from playing solid defense.

The last game on the NFL Week 8 schedule sees the Super Bowl champion Seahawks (3-2, 1-2 on the road) playing the Bears (5-2, 2-1 on the road) at Lumen Field (FieldTurf CORE) in Seattle, Washington, on Monday Night Football (ESPN, 8:15 EST/7:15 CST/6:15 MST/5:15 PST).

Both teams have seen injuries to their starting QBs. Still, both have returned, with Chicago’s Caleb Williams looking good after a hurt hamstring, and Seattle QB Sam Darnold back under center in the Emerald City but putting up some less-than-impressive statistics (8 TD/8 INT/53.4 QBR).

Prediction market traders at Polymarket US have made Seattle (62%) the favorite over Chicago (38%) in the Chicago Bears vs Seattle Seahawks winner. At online sportsbook DraftKings, the Seahawks are the 3-point home chalk, with the Total (points) at 46.5 (SEA -166, CHI +140).

The Bears defense (T-#9) has improved, and was better than the Seahawks (#4) before the Chiefs crushing—pretty amazing considering the attention paid to Williams, D’Andre Swift, Rome Odunze, and the Chicago offense (25.7 PPG, #8, 154.3 Rushing YPG, #1).

The Bears head in with 9 days rest after beating NE on October 22, in a confidence builder for the New Monsters of the Midway. Seattle looked strong handing KC its first loss and will get RB Zach Charbonnet back and the Seahawks traded for Pro Bowl G Quenton Nelson (IND) on Tuesday.

What happened? Kenneth Walker III is gone, that’s what happened. And while the Seahawks' rushing attack (113.7 YPG, #17) has plummeted since Walker signed with KC, the Bears have found they can run the football with RB Swift, and up-and-coming RB Kyle Monangai and Williams

In the last 10 meetings between these two NFC animals, the Seahawks are 6-4 SU (5-5-0 ATS), but lost 2 of the last 3 at Lumen Field to the Bears (2006, 2018). The Over went a profitable 7-3-0 over that span, cashing in 3 of the last 4 in Bigfootville. Chicago is 7-3-0 ATS the last 10 overall.

➠In the next edition of The Prediction Report, we’ll view the state of the prediction markets on Midterms Election Eve, serve up the weekly Earnings calendar, and dish out trading previews and picks for the 2027 NBA Sixth Man of the Year award, the NFL Jaguars at Ravens game on Thursday, and the NCAAF #3 Georgia vs. #7 Ole Miss SEC scuffle in Oxford, Mississippi on Saturday.