NCAA football betting players are gearing up for the beginning of their season, but hoops season is still a couple of months away, and here are the five teams we think will be on top of the polls when they’re released.

Kentucky

The Wildcats pulled out another amazing recruiting class, led by guard Brandon Knight, who could be the next great guard molded by coach John Calipari. However, like last year, will inexperience doom the Wildcats when it gets down to crunch time?

Duke

The defending champions received a boost when Kyle Singler said he would come back for his senior year to lead a deep Duke team, as well as boost his chances in the draft next year.

Michigan State

Did you expect a Tom Izzo-coached team to fall off? The Spartans will again be one of the toughest teams in the country, but the pressure is on guard Kalin Lucas to stay healthy. When he is out, the Spartans are robbed of their best offensive weapon.

Syracuse

The Orangemen were insanely deep last year, which is good as they lost a lot of players from last year. Look for forward Kris Joseph, who was overshadowed last year, to break out.

Kansas

The Jayhawks were another deep team with a couple of players that were in the shadows last year. Tyshawn Taylor complained about not getting enough touches this year, but he’ll have all he wants and more in 2010. If he can prove that he’s a legitimate No.1 option, the Jayhawks will be near the top of most betting lists this year.

Within the United States there are many great sporting events. From the Stanley Cup NHL finals to the NBA Championship, the big four professional sports tend to dominate the mainstream media except for one time in the year, the month of March.

During the month of March fans betting on college sports specifically basketball, are treated to a 68 (formerly 64) team tournament, to determine the best college basketball program in North America. This year’s final pitted power house Duke against Butler, a team that although ranked fifth, was likely a long shot on the betting odds table.

Starting next year, the tournament format will change from 64 teams to 68 teams, as the NCAA has expanded its divisions. As a result, teams and coaches who would not have previously qualified can have the opportunity to shine. The brackets will change from 16 teams to 17 teams.

However there will still be a final four prior to crowning a winner for the madness tournament. This year with the new format, 31 teams will receive automatic entry into the tournament while the 37 remaining teams will place at large bids.

Rather than a round robin, the March Madness tournament is single elimination and the seeds are never reseeded. For instance, if a 17 seed knocks off a number one seed, they would not become the new number one seed, but rather stay at 17 for the remainder of their stay in the tournament.

Although the expansion to 68 teams simply allows for one more team to be added to each bracket, the belief of amongst many critics of the new setup is that top seeds will give more crushing defeats then when they would face a 16 seed. On the other hand, these new teams entering the tournament will now be able to join in on the revenues each school receives by participating.

Those who are betting on horses know you have to have a good trainer and jockey to get to the promised land, but as a coach in the college hoops world, you must have aspects of both trainer and jockey under control to be successful.  Kentucky’s John Calipari is one of the best in the business, but will he be tempted by the pro route again?

A lot of people forget that Calipari has already coached in the NBA, posting a 72-112 record in just under 2 ½ seasons in New Jersey from 1996-1999.  It’s ironic that the Nets are sniffing around Calipari again, and they’re trying to see if persuading Calipari to come to town would help in the pursuit of LeBron James, the two-time defending NBA MVP who happens to be the biggest free agent on the market this year.  Calipari and James are friends who have been seen at each other’s games this year, and Nets owner Makhail Prokhorov has money to burn.

But would this even be successful?  As Calipari can attest, coaching in the pros requires a completely different style than in college as most of these players are veterans who have been around for a while and don’t respond to the “rah-rah” stuff that permeates the NCAA.  Also, Calipari is a god in Lexington right now and didn’t even win the title.  His contract is being reworked as we speak as Kentucky officials are trying to tie him up for the rest of his career.  I wouldn’t lay an online sports bet on seeing Coach Cal in the NBA any time soon.

World Cup betting players don’t have to worry about recruiting that much as players are funneled from the youth to the senior teams.  That’s not the way it goes in college basketball, where coaches and their assistants are constantly out on the road trying to find the next big star, and no one has been better at it over the past few seasons than John Calipari.

Calipari’s 2010 recruiting class is stacked as he has four of the top 21 players in the Rivals150, including Enes Kanter, Brandon Knight, Terrence Jones and Doron Lamb.  Knight and Lamb played with each other in the MacDonald’s High School All-American game, and they’ll probably be this year’s edition of John Wall and Eric Bledsoe in the Kentucky backcourt.  Jones and Kanter aren’t as big as DeMarcus Cousins and Daniel Orton, the Wildcats’ big game that entered their games into the draft, but Kanter’s game is very similar to Cousins in the post, while Jones has a lot of upside at both ends of the floor.

This may not have the pure talent that last year’s group had, and obviously there is no impact player in the vein of Wall, although Knight is wildly athletic and loves to defend as much as he loves to make offensive plays.  The Wildcats should be one of the top teams in the nation again thanks to Calipari’s recruiting magic, and while it may not lead to a national title, the betting odds are good that more top-notch players will eventually end up in Lexington.