Florida Tops Preseason AP Top 25 With 47 First-Place Votes; Duke Second, Illinois Third
The Associated Press released its preseason Top 25 for the 2026-27 men's college basketball season on Monday afternoon, with Florida picked as the runaway No. 1 after receiving 47 of 59 first-place votes. It is the first time Florida will start a season at No. 1 since 2006-07, when it was the defending national champion; the Gators last topped the poll after winning the 2024-25 national title.
Florida returns four of five starters from a team that went 16-2 in the Southeastern Conference and earned a No. 1 NCAA Tournament seed for a second straight season before losing to Iowa in the second round. Earlier this month, Kentucky transfer Denzel Aberdeen, who rejoined the program after one season with the Wildcats, was ruled eligible after a court granted a temporary injunction.
Duke received 10 first-place votes and is No. 2, while Illinois got the other two and is No. 3. UConn and Arizona round out the top five, followed by Michigan State, Texas, Tennessee, Virginia and Houston. Defending national champion Michigan, which lost coach Dusty May and four of five starters to the NBA, opens at No. 16. Kentucky is No. 23 and is two weeks away from becoming the first program to reach 1,000 weeks in the AP Top 25. Purdue fell out of the poll, snapping a streak of 79 straight weeks in the Top 25.
The SEC placed seven teams in the poll, ahead of the Big 12's six, the Big Ten's five and the ACC's four. Rounding out the poll, in order: Louisville, Arkansas, St. John's, Miami (FL), Gonzaga, Michigan, Kansas, Iowa State, Texas Tech, Alabama, USC, UCLA, Kentucky, Vanderbilt and BYU. (GSM, via Reuters)
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：佛罗里达大学主场 Stephen C. O'Connell Center 内景，场中央为短吻鳄队标（资料图，2024年12月摄）。图片来源：VermontPowderKing 摄，Wikimedia Commons，CC BY 4.0。Photo: Inside Florida's Stephen C. O'Connell Center, with the Gators logo at center court (file photo, December 2024). By VermontPowderKing, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.
