The deadline for college basketball players to withdraw from the NBA Draft and retain their college eligibility passed this week. While Dusty May and the Michigan Wolverines already knew the decisions of Morez Johnson Jr, Aday Mara and Elliot Cadeau, other Big Ten programs weren’t so lucky to know their fate in advance.
The race for the Big Ten title is already heating up for the 2026-27 season. Should Michigan be favored to repeat, or has the deadline news affected your confidence?
Arguably the biggest news in Big Ten hoops this week was Jeremy Fears returning to Michigan State. Say what you will about his antics, Fears is still an excellent point guard and dramatically raises the ceiling for the Spartans and they are now very likely a Top 10 team heading into next season.
Similarly, guard Andrej Stojakovic announced his return to Illinois mere hours before the deadline. While he doesn’t have nearly the same value to Illinois as Fears does to Michigan State, he still wraps up the excellent job that head coach Brad Underwood did retaining talent. Illinois will now bring back Stojakovic, David Mirkovic, Tomislav Ivisic, Zvonimir Ivisic, and Jake Davis — for a Final Four team to return that amount of talent is nearly unheard of in this day and age.
Michigan, Michigan State and Illinois figure to be a three-headed monster in the Big Ten next season. While none of the major sportsbooks have released futures for conference winners following the stay/go decisions this week, they do have national champion futures available. Among Big Ten programs, here are the Top 10 odds on DraftKings:
- Michigan +800
- Illinois +1500
- Michigan State +1800
- Purdue +5000
- Indiana +5000
- USC +5000
- UCLA +6000
- Iowa +6000
- Maryland +9000
- Nebraska +10000
The sportsbooks seem to have Michigan as the clear favorite, with Illinois and Michigan State in a second tier before a very, very large gap.
Do you agree with Michigan being favored to win the conference in 2026-27? Does Michigan State worry you with the return of Fears? Will Illinois find its way back to the Final Four with largely the same roster as last year? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.