Florida is No. 1 in preseason AP
Top 25 men's poll as Duke, Illini also receive first-place votes
[October 20, 2026]
By DAVE SKRETTA
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. It is the first time that coach Todd Golden's bunch
has resided on top since the final poll in 2025, after they had
beaten Houston to deliver the school its third national
championship.
“It's cool,” Golden said of 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 received 10 first-place votes and was second in the preseason
poll. Illinois received the other two and was third.
The Gators started last season at No. 3 but crashed out of the poll
entirely by early January. They rallied to win the Southeastern
Conference regular-season championship, only to get stunned by Iowa
as a No. 1 seed in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
“I think we're more prepared this year for early-season expectations
than we were last year,” Golden said. “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 of roster upheaval — some teams still don't know who will
be eligible as court cases play out — the Gators have the benefit of
experience on their side. Thomas Haugh, Alex Condon, Rueben Chinyelu
and Denzel Aberdeen all played on their national title team.
Aberdeen, back after a year at Kentucky, is among the players who've
been granted another season of eligibility by the courts.
“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
said. “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
The Blue Devils matched their highest preseason ranking since they
were No. 1 in 2017, though coach Jon Scheyer is well aware that
where they end up is what matters. Duke has won 70 games over the
past two seasons, a school record for such a stretch, but losses to
UConn in the Elite Eight and Houston in the Final Four have left a
sting on Tobacco Road.
"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 give Duke a talented
returning nucleus to go with its top-tier recruiting class.
“I feel like we have a chance to win a national championship,” Sarr
said. “It's just doing a better job this year.”
[to top of second column] |
Illinois forward David Mirkovic (0) rebounds over UConn forward
Tarris Reed Jr. during the first half of an NCAA college basketball
tournament semifinal game at the Final Four, April 4, 2026, in
Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr, File)
Illinois matched its best preseason ranking since
2001, and returns five of its top eight scorers — headlined by
Andrej Stojakovic and David Mirkovic — from a team that made its
first Final Four appearance in two decades last season.
UConn and Arizona, each coming off a Final Four trip of their own,
rounded out the top five of the preseason poll.
The rest of the rankings
Michigan State, Texas, Tennessee, Virginia and Houston finished out
the first 10, while Louisville, Arkansas, St. John's, Miami and
Gonzaga were next. Michigan, Kansas, Iowa State, Texas Tech and
Alabama rounded out the top 20, while the final five in the Top 25
were USC, UCLA, Kentucky, Vanderbilt and BYU.
The Jayhawks feature the nation’s No. 1 recruit, Tyran Stokes, a
year after Darryn Peterson brought the same billing to Lawrence for
a frustrating season that ended with another first-weekend NCAA
tourney exit. The late addition of all-Big Ten forward Trey Kaufman-Renn,
a transfer from Purdue, coupled with the return of Tre White and
Melvin Council III thanks to court decisions, could change those
fortunes come March.
Kentucky is making its 998th appearance in the poll. Two more weeks
and it will be the first to reach 1,000.
Vanderbilt, which finished 19th last year, is ranked in the
preseason Top 25 for the first time since 2015, while BYU is back in
the poll despite losing one-and-done phenom A.J. Dybantsa, the No. 1
overall pick in the NBA draft.
The best of the rest
Missouri is the top team outside the Top 25, though the Tigers could
break in soon. All-SEC forward Mark Mitchell was granted an
injunction last week to play another season, and he joins a roster
loaded with veterans (Trent Pierce), elite transfers (Jamier Jones,
Bryson Tiller, Jaylen Carey and Kennard Davis Jr.) and five-star
freshmen (Jason Crowe Jr. and Toni Bryant).
Nebraska was next-best of the rest, while Purdue was among those
receiving plenty of votes, though not enough to avoid ending the
Boilermakers' streak of 79 consecutive weeks in the poll. That was
second-longest to Houston, which is at 127 and counting.
___
AP Basketball Writer Aaron Beard and AP Sports Writer Mark Long
contributed.
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