We’ve nearly reached the end of the 2025-26 men’s college basketball season, which has produced both one of the best regular seasons and NCAA Tournaments in recent memory. In the Final Four, we find a quartet of teams that have been among the nation’s best all season and didn’t really surprise anyone by making it to this point.
All four teams left are more than capable of winning a national title and have put together impressive resumes since the season began. With that said, we’ll be ranking the men’s
Final Four teams to provide a glimpse of what to expect this weekend in Indianapolis.
4. UConn (No. 2 seed – East Region)
They’re not far behind the field, but the UConn Huskies come into the Final Four as the fourth-best team, in my opinion. The national champs in 2023 and 2024 came into this season with the expectation of making it this far, but ultimately showed some warts throughout the season that cost them some good will among fans and pundits.
UConn enters the weekend ranked as the No. 9 team in the country on KenPom and the No. 7 team at EvanMiya.com. The defense has been its calling card this season, although it still lags behind both Michigan’s and Arizona’s. And as we saw for much of its Elite Eight matchup against Duke, the offense is prone to some bad cold spells.
The Huskies had a sloppy end to the regular season with a late loss to 12-20 Marquette and bowed out in the Big East Championship in an uncompetitive 20-point loss to St. Johns. However, they’ve rebounded nicely in the big dance by going through a pair of tough opponents in UCLA and Michigan State. Then, on Sunday, UConn’s 19-point comeback over top-seeded Duke was capped by one of the biggest moments in March history, as freshman Braylon Mullins sank a near half-court three-pointer with 0.3 seconds left to secure the victory.
Make no mistake, UConn may be the fourth-best team on paper entering the Final Four, but it is more than capable of winning it all. After all, it all just defeat a historically great Duke team to get to this point, and you can never rule out a Dan Hurley-coached team.
3. Illinois (No. 3 seed – South Region)
Now you might be scratching your head and thinking, “Didn’t UConn beat Illinois earlier this year?” Yes, in fact the Huskies did beat Illinois back on Nov. 28 in Madison Square Garden, 74-61. So why would Illinois be ranked as the better team? Keaton Wagler. That’s why.
Back when Illinois and UConn initially matched up, Illinois’ freshman guard was still a little-known three-star recruit that wasn’t a yet a fixture in the rotation. He played only 14 minutes and scored three points in that game, but Wagler has emerged as one of the best players in the country since then thanks to his offensive prowess. His presence has taken the Illini to a whole new level.
Wagler isn’t the only player contributing to the success, though, as guards Andrej Stojakovic and Kylan Boswell (who scored 25 points against UConn in November) give defenses additional scoring threats to monitor. Meanwhile, the Illini have five bigs in the rotation that can make life difficult for oppsosing teams. Freshman David Mirkovic is the best of the bunch and got Illinois’ tournament run started with 29 points against Penn.
Contrary to UConn, the Illini have the No. 1 offense in the country while their defense lags behind and can look like Swiss cheese at times, especially against great guard play. That could get them in trouble against Michigan or Arizona should they make it to the title game.
2. Michigan (No. 1 seed – Midwest)
I originally wanted to group Michigan and Arizona together in a tie for No. 1 here, but decided against the easy way out and have Michigan as the No. 2 team by the narrowest of margins despite the Wolverines being favored on Saturday night.
We know the story by now with Michigan. Yaxel Lendeborg has been one of the best players in the country and is most likely the best player that will be on the floor this weekend. However, the Wolverines also have one of the deepest and most talented rotations in the country, which has helped them get this far. Morez Johnson Jr. and Aday Mara have been fierce defenders on the inside while being able to score the ball as well. Point guard Elliot Cadeau has also turned it on as of late to help provide some flow to the offense and has been a big reason why Michigan has scored over 90 points in all of its tournament games so far.
We’ll dig more into what makes Arizona so great momentarily, but Michigan has been has been just a bit more inconsistent. In the Wolverines’ loss to Duke, they struggled to get into the interior on offense, forcing them to have to find more points on the outside — something they just weren’t able to do that night in Washington D.C. Michigan’s interior defense struggled again vs Purdue and allowed Oscar Cluff and Trey Kaufman-Renn to have big games. Arizona has the ability to beat teams in a variety of ways, so Michigan will need to be on its A-plus game if it wants to move on.
1. Arizona (No. 1 seed – West Region)
I’ll reiterate, it’s by the narrowest of margins that Arizona is my No. 1 team here since the Wildcats have been flawless for the entire season outside of a five-day period in early February in which they suffered back-to-back losses by a total of seven points — on the road against Kansas and at home against Texas Tech when J.T. Toppin was healthy. They’ve had some close games against other great opponents, but have been able to pull out a win pretty much every time.
Much like Michigan, Arizona is elite on both ends of the floor, with the No. 4 offense and No. 2 defense on KenPom. The Wildcats also come into the Final Four playing some of their best ball, most notably with an impressive 15-point win over Purdue in the Elite Eight, the most recent team to beat Michigan.
Both Michigan and Arizona have deep rotations, but something else that gives Arizona a slight advantage is its ability to have any one of its players take over a game on any given night, whereas Michigan can be a bit over-reliant on Lendeborg at times. Some nights for the Wildcats, it’s Brayden Burries lighting it up from three-point range. Sometimes it’s Koa Peat and the big men probing the interior. And sometimes it’s Big 12 Player of the Year Jaden Bradley scoring the ball himself or being an elite distributor.
That’s not to say Michigan doesn’t have backup options if its fastball isn’t working in any given game, but Arizona’s stars might have a bit more of a margin for error.
What order would you rank this weekend’s Final Four participants? Let us know in the comments below!
