The 2024-2025 men’s college basketball season is finally here. Of the nearly 200 games scheduled for Monday, a top-10 showdown between No. 6 Gonzaga and No. 8 Baylor takes the cake as the main event on opening day.

The Bulldogs return six of their top seven scorers and 10 total players from last season’s 27-8 roster after their ninth straight Sweet 16 appearance. Senior guards Ryan Nembhard and Nolan Hickman return to the backcourt, while 6-foot-4 senior Ben Gregg and 6-foot-10 redshirt senior Graham Ike are also back to man the frontcourt.

Nembhard and Ike were on some notable preseason watch lists ahead of their respective final seasons of college basketball. Both made the 2025 Naismith Trophy watch list and were named early contenders for the Bob Cousy Award (Nembhard) and the Karl Malone Award (Ike). Michael Ajayi was the third Zag named to the preseason roster as he will compete for the Julius Erving Award after leading the West Coast Conference in scoring last season.

Fans got their first glimpse of Mark Few’s revamped roster in the form of two exhibition games ahead of Monday’s regular season tip-off. Gonzaga lost to USC, 96-93, in Palm Desert, California, in its first friendly before defeating NAIA foe Warner Pacific in a 57-point victory at the McCarthey Athletic Center last week. While the results don’t count in the win-loss column, the games did provide Few and the coaching staff with an opportunity to play with different substitutions and five-man combinations on the floor.

On the other hand, Scott Drew and the Bears are looking to replace four of their five starters from last season’s 24-11 team with a plethora of young talent and veteran transfer players. Potential prospect, 6-foot-2 freshman VJ Edgecombe, is the headliner of a star-studded recruiting class that is ranked No. 6 in the country by 247Sports.

Drew added a pair of fifth-year prospects who boast Final Four experience in 6-foot-1 guard Jeremy Roach (Duke) and 6-foot-10 forward Norchad Omier. Both were voted to the preseason All-Big-12 second team.

The Bulldogs are 5.5 point favorites over the Bears in the betting markets after the line shifted from where it was at the end of last week. Gonzaga was 2.5-point favorites heading into Monday’s game after the second and final exhibition game, although it appears the market is leaning even more heavily on the Zags in the final hours leading up to tip-off.

Here are the latest betting odds for the Gonzaga men’s basketball game against Baylor on Monday night.

Odds courtesy of FanDuel Sportsbook

No. 6 Gonzaga vs. No. 8 Baylor Betting Odds, TV Channel

Spread: Gonzaga -5.5 (-115)

Top/Bottom: 157.5 (-115)

Play time: Monday, November 4 at 8:30 PM PST/11:30 PM ET

TV channel: ESPN2

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