The college basketball season is heating up, with Selection Sunday just six weeks away. Find out who’s surging as March nears, including two Big Ten squads and an ACC team that has been excellent all season — yet continues to raise its ceiling.
These college basketball rankings are based not on pure talent, but on the hottest teams. Which five teams are on the rise?
Hottest Teams in College Basketball
We hear all about peaking at the right time in sports. In college basketball, that’s the name of the game. The NCAA Tournament is all about who is best in that three-week window when the tournament takes place.
We’ll take a look at five teams who may be beginning the journey to their peak, beginning with a team that responded extremely well to their coach publicly calling them soft.
UCLA Bruins (16-6, 7-4 Big Ten)
The Bruins have had a tremendous past two weeks, ending a four-game losing streak by winning five consecutive games. Head coach Mick Cronin called his soft during that losing streak — ultimately, it’s woken up this talented UCLA squad.
The turnaround began with a 24-point pounding of the Iowa Hawkeyes with five players scoring in double-figures. Then, they defeated the No. 18 Wisconsin Badgers at home, snapping the Badgers’ seven-game winning streak before sweeping a road trip against the Washington Huskies and USC Trojans, pulling out five- and six-point victories, respectively.
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The exclamation point came against the No. 16 Oregon Ducks — the Bruins completely dismantled the Ducks, winning by 26 points and holding Oregon point guard Jackson Shelstad to 0 points.
Sophomore forward Eric Dailey Jr. has come into his own during the winning streak, establishing himself as arguably the best scorer on the team. He’s averaging 15.0 ppg in the last five games, including 21- and 23-point outings.
The Bruins’ season looked dead in the water just three weeks ago. Now, they have a total of five Quad 1 victories on the season in addition to being tied for fourth in the Big Ten.
They’ve turned themselves into a legitimate contender in the conference, with a very real possibility of securing an NCAA Tournament berth.
Texas Longhorns (15-7, 4-5 SEC)
Though the Longhorns are currently tenth in the SEC standings, the conference is absolutely loaded this season.
Texas began the season on a solid note, going 11-2 in the non-conference portion of their schedule. They lost their first three games of SEC play, putting an immediate question mark over their ability to compete in the conference.
The Longhorns have since bounced back, with four wins in their last six games — two coming against ranked opponents, the No. 22 Missouri Tigers and No. 13 Texas A&M Aggies.
A three-point loss to the No. 23 Ole Miss Rebels followed those wins, yet preceded a 31-point beatdown of the LSU Tigers in Baton Rouge on Saturday night.
Freshman sensation Tre Johnson led the way once again, but got help from three other double-digit scorers. Johnson has been tremendous all season — but it’s down low, where forward Arthur Kaluma has made a big difference in the Longhorns’ surge.
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Kaluma has notched two double-doubles in the past four games and has been active on the defensive end, totaling eight blocks and steals combined.
Each of Texas’s six losses have come against Quad 1 opponents — if they continue to take care of business and beat a few more ranked opponents (they have four remaining on the schedule with the conference tournament looming), the Longhorns will find themselves with a good shot at making the Tournament.
Kansas State Wildcats (10-11, 4-6 Big 12)
The Wildcats’ season has more-than-likely already reached the point of no return in terms of receiving an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. They’re slotted at No. 83 in terms of NET Ranking, already losing 11 games.
But the team’s success is trending up in a big way. Following a stretch of losing nine of ten games, Kansas State has responded by winning three in a row by double-digits.
Their average margin of victory in those games is a cool 20 points while holding their opponents to 59.3 ppg on 37.5% shooting. And it’s not like those games have been against subpar opponents either.
The start of the streak was an upset victory over the No. 23 West Virginia Mountaineers. The Oklahoma State Cowboys at 10-10 were next, proving a seemingly equal match for the Wildcats. That proved untrue, as Kansas State won by 28 points. The most impressive triumph was on Saturday night, when the Wildcats visited the No. 3 Iowa State Cyclones. Kansas State took control of the game in the second half and won going away, 80-61.
The Wildcats are turning into exactly the type of team nobody wants to see in the Big 12 tournament. They’ll most likely have to win the conference tournament to get into the NCAA tournament; something we saw last year with the NC State Wolfpack.
Whether head coach Jerome Tang can keep his team on the right side of these games remains to be seen — but he does know a little something about making a run in the tournament if he can manage to get them there.
Purdue Boilermakers (17-5, 9-2 Big Ten)
An 8-4 start to the season raised questions over the Boilermakers ceiling in 2025. They’ve since won nine of 10 games, shushing the doubters and proving themselves as a true contender for the Big Ten regular-season title.
Of those nine wins, their average margin of victory is 16.9 points, with a number of blowouts victories. Their only slip-up was a three-point to a solid Ohio State Buckeyes squad.
Point guard Braden Smith has been the catalyst as of late — in fact he made history as the only D1 player (men’s or women’s) to record 150+ points, 80+ assists, and 25+ steals in this century, something he did in January.
Forward Trey Kaufman-Renn has been solid all season, averaging 18.4 ppg and 6.2 rpg, on 60.4% shooting.
With continued excellent play — in addition to the experience this group has in the postseason — the Boilermakers have positioned themselves to make a deep run in March.
Duke Blue Devils (19-2, 11-0 ACC)
I know what you’re thinking. How can a team that’s been ranked highly all season be considered a riser?
While the Blue Devils have won 15 consecutive games, spanning all the way back to late November, it’s the manner in which they’re winning as of late that should strike absolute fear in future opponents.
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It all starts with all-world freshman point-forward Cooper Flagg. He came into the season as the consensus No. 1 selection in the 2025 NBA Draft, living up to expectations early. But recently, he’s taken his game to a completely different level.
During his past six outings, Flagg has poured in 26 ppg, dishes out 5.5 apg, and grabbed 6.6 rpg while shooting 55% from the field, up from 48.4% on the season.
Another freshman has upped his game as well.
6’7″ guard Kon Knueppel has scored 15.6 ppg on 42.1% from three-point range over the same stretch.
The Blue Devils average margin of victory? 17.0 ppg.
Duke has truly separated itself from the pack of top teams as of late with numerous statement wins in the ACC. They’re a top-five team in the country in terms of nearly every metric available.
Couple that with the emergence of Flagg and Knueppel, and the Blue Devils are a serious contender for a national championship.
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