The upcoming college basketball season promises to be one for the ages.
The 2025–26 college basketball season is set to begin with high expectations for top players like AJ dybansta, Tahaad Pettiford, Ian Jackson and more. Across the country, top programs are preparing for another competitive year marked by strong recruiting classes, key returning players, and significant roster changes through the transfer portal.
NCAA College basketball, which officially kicks off November 3, 2025 is one of the most popular sports leagues in the entire world. Millions of people watch it nationwide, with the association generating billions of dollars annually.
The team to beat this year is the reigning champs, the Florida Gators.
Jack Carter a five-year day student from Hadley, Mass., is excited to watch the upcoming season.
“I think this season will be a great one,” said Jack. “My favorite team is Duke, [and] think we have a great team even though we lost Cooper, Kon, and Khaman to the draft because we still retained a lot of great players and even added the Boozer twins. So yeah I think we will be pretty good this year.”
Jack is referring to last year’s Duke team, which was one of the most talented in recent memory and included multiple lottery picks in the NBA draft like Kon Knnuepal, Khaman Malauch, and number one draft pick Cooper Flagg.
The Blue Devils were eliminated in the Final Four by the Houston Cougars after blowing a late double-digit lead. The team however, retained a lot of top end talent despite losing players to the draft. They didn’t lose a single player to the transfer portal and gained multiple recruits Cameron and Cayden Boozer, Nikolas Khamenia, Sebastian Wilkins, and more.
The past two winners of the March Madness tournament were the Florida Gators and the UConn Huskie,, two teams with not a lot of returning talent, so Duke has a fair chance at winning it all for the first time since 2015
Lev Duryea a two-year day student from Holyoke Mass., has his eye on a few players this year.
“ I think that the obvious Player to watch is AJ Dybansta, he’s from Massachusetts and might be the best prospect ever from here,” Lev said. “He also broke the mold by not going to a powerhouse school in BYU, so I think I’ll be watching him this season.”
AJ Dybansta is one of the highest rated recruits in American high school basketball history. He received a near perfect 0.999 on 247sports composite rankings; for comparison, NBA superstar Anthony Edwards only received a composite rating of 0.994 by the website.
