CBS Sports spent over a month talking to over 100 sources to discover how much every power-conference college basketball team is spending this season on their respective rosters. The findings from CBS Sports college basketball writers Matt Norlander and Isaac Trotter were fascinating, with 11 programs projected to spend more than $20 million on their rosters during the 2026-27 campaign. Ten of those 11 teams (Texas Tech, Kentucky, Illinois, Texas, Florida, St.
John's, Louisville, Duke, Tennessee and Michigan) were ranked in the preseason AP Top 25 poll earlier this week. The lone team in Tier 1 of spending that wasn't ranked in the first poll of the season? The Tar Heels are entering a new era with Michael Malone at the helm of the program.
The longtime NBA coach is a first-time college head coach who got a late start on the recruiting trail after being hired in early April. Malone took in six transfers, including former Virginia Tech star Neoklis Avdalas, and finished ranked No. 9 in the 247Sports team transfer rankings. It should come as no surprise that the biggest spenders in the sport make up a majority of the top teams in the AP Top 25 poll.
However, several programs are doing more with less, while the inverse — as with Kentucky last season — could prove true. Here are the six biggest takeaways from college basketball's NIL arms race that will remain a talking point throughout the season and again this offseason when teams flip their respective rosters and a new batch of players enter the transfer portal. Entering this season and the first for coach Michael Malone at the helm, North Carolina is unranked in the preseason AP Top 25 poll.
The Tar Heels received the fifth-most votes of teams that were unranked, which essentially rates Malone's squad as the 30th-best team in the sport entering the season. In the ACC poll, North Carolina was projected to finish behind Duke, Virginia, Miami and Louisville. In short, the amount North Carolina is spending on this 2026-27 roster doesn't match the preseason projections.
Carolina is not a Tier 1 national title contender. Malone was one of the best coaches in the NBA and helped the Nuggets win the title in 2023. However, college is a completely different game.
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