Florida will start the men’s college basketball season where it ended it two seasons ago: No. 1.
The Gators were the overwhelming pick to top the preseason AP Top 25 on Monday, receiving 47 of the 59 first-place votes from a panel of national media. This marks the first occasion that coach Todd Golden’s squad has held the top spot since their final poll in 2025, when they defeated Houston to secure the school’s third national championship.
“It’s cool,” Golden remarked about the ranking. “But like, we’ve been No. 1 before. We won a national championship before. That’s what I want our program to expect. That’s what we want to kind of go into every season at.”
Duke emerged as the second team in the preseason poll, garnering 10 first-place votes, while Illinois secured the third spot with the remaining two votes.
Last season, the Gators began at No. 3 but quickly fell out of the rankings by early January. Although they managed to clinch the Southeastern Conference regular-season title, they faced a shocking upset as a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, falling to Iowa in the second round.
“I think we’re more prepared this year for early-season expectations than we were last year,” Golden noted. “We were kind of gathering ourselves, figuring (things) out for the first time, where this year we can use last year’s experience to learn from.”
In an era characterized by roster instability—where several teams are still uncertain about player eligibility due to ongoing court cases—the Gators benefit from a wealth of experience. Key players such as Thomas Haugh, Alex Condon, Rueben Chinyelu, and Denzel Aberdeen all contributed to their national title team.
Aberdeen, who returns after a year at Kentucky, is among the players that the courts have allowed another season of eligibility.
“We didn’t finish the way that we wanted to last year, so everyone’s kind of got that in the back of their head as motivation,” Condon stated. “Times where we’re struggling in conditioning at 6 a.m., we just went back to that, and I feel like we’ve talked about it a few times with the core group, how motivating it is the fact that we fell short.”
The Head of the Class
Duke matched its highest preseason ranking since being No. 1 in 2017. Despite this, coach Jon Scheyer is keenly aware that the ultimate measure of success is where they finish the season. With a record of 70 wins over the past two years—an unprecedented achievement for the program—Duke still grapples with the sting of losses to UConn in the Elite Eight and Houston in the Final Four.
“I feel like any time I step on the court, I believe me and my teammates are going to win,” said Dame Sarr, who, along with Caleb Foster, Patrick Ngongba II, and Cayden Boozer, forms a talented nucleus combined with a high-profile recruiting class.
“I feel like we have a chance to win a national championship,” Sarr added. “It’s just doing a better job this year.”
Illinois also matched its best preseason ranking since 2001, returning five of its top eight scorers from a team that made its first Final Four appearance in two decades last season.
The preseason Top 5 is rounded out by UConn and Arizona, both of which made it to the Final Four last season.
The Rest of the Rankings
Completing the top 10 are Michigan State, Texas, Tennessee, Virginia, and Houston, while Louisville, Arkansas, St. John’s, Miami, and Gonzaga follow closely behind. Michigan, Kansas, Iowa State, Texas Tech, and Alabama fill out the top 20. The final five in the Top 25 include USC, UCLA, Kentucky, Vanderbilt, and BYU.
The Jayhawks boast the nation’s top recruit, Tyran Stokes, aiming to improve on a frustrating season that ended with an early NCAA tournament exit. The late addition of all-Big Ten forward Trey Kaufman-Renn from Purdue, alongside the return of Tre White and Melvin Council III, could significantly impact their performance come March.
Kentucky is set for its 998th appearance in the poll, inching closer to becoming the first team to reach 1,000. Notably, Vanderbilt returns to the preseason Top 25 for the first time since 2015, while BYU makes its return despite the loss of A.J. Dybantsa, the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA draft.
The Best of the Rest
Missouri ranks as the top team outside the Top 25 and could soon break into the rankings. With All-SEC forward Mark Mitchell granted an injunction for another season, he joins a roster filled with veterans, elite transfers, and promising five-star freshmen.
Nebraska follows closely behind, while Purdue found itself receiving votes but ultimately breaking a streak of 79 consecutive weeks in the poll, just behind Houston, which holds a remarkable 127-week streak.
___
AP Basketball Writer Aaron Beard and AP Sports Writer Mark Long contributed.
___
Sign up for Top 25 poll alerts here, visit the Top 25 here and see AP’s full men’s basketball coverage here.
