In the free agency era, college basketball coaches are constantly in projection mode and are often asking themselves questions about their teams, such as:
What’s our best lineup? What will we be great at?Who will play well together?What tweaks are we adding offensively or defensively? Did we fix our issues?
This week, the first official practices for the 2025-26 college basketball season got underway. With the season starting Nov. 3, there’s no place to hide anymore, and the summer work is about to show. After a barrage of coaching changes and hundreds of players flip-flopping from school to school, there are fewer known commodities than ever before. Just seven high-major teams (Purdue, UConn, Marquette, Stanford, Notre Dame, Iowa State and SMU) are slated to return 50% or more of their minutes from last year. For reference, 32 high-major clubs returned north of 50% of their minutes ahead of the 2019-20 season.
This time of year is critical for determining the hierarchy of each team, and starting jobs are up for grabs.
Let’s dive into six massive preseason position battles that will have a pivotal say on these respective teams hitting their stride.
Candid Coaches: Who will be the best men’s college basketball team this season?
Matt Norlander
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