Florida No. 1 in preseason AP Top 25 men's hoop poll — SkimNews
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- Florida tops the preseason AP Top 25 with 47 of 59 first-place votes, its first No. 1 ranking since the final 2025 poll after winning the program's third national championship.
- Duke placed second with 10 first-place votes—matching its highest preseason rank since 2017—while Illinois received the remaining two votes to land at No. 3.
- Coach Todd Golden said the Gators are better prepared for early-season expectations this year after they 'crashed out of the poll entirely by early January' last season before a second-round NCAA Tournament loss to Iowa as a No. 1 seed.
- Florida returns four players from its 2025 title team—Thomas Haugh, Alex Condon, Rueben Chinyelu, and Denzel Aberdeen, who is back after a year at Kentucky following court-granted additional eligibility.
- Illinois matched its best preseason ranking since 2001, bringing back five of its top eight scorers—headlined by Andrej Stojakovic and David Mirkovic—from a squad that reached its first Final Four in two decades.
- UConn and Arizona, each coming off their own Final Four trips, rounded out the top five, with Michigan State, Texas, Tennessee, Virginia and Houston closing out the top 10.
- Kentucky makes its 998th AP poll appearance—two weeks from becoming the first program to reach 1,000—while Purdue saw its 79-consecutive-week streak end, the second-longest behind Houston's 127 and counting.
Why it matters: Florida's No. 1 debut carries a cautionary footnote: the Gators crashed out of the rankings entirely by early January a year ago from a similar preseason perch, and now they're betting returning national-title veterans will keep them steady. The top of the poll is unusually deep, with Duke matching its best preseason mark since 2017 off a school-record 70 wins in two seasons and Illinois returning five top scorers from a Final Four run. Purdue's 79-week streak ending behind only Houston's 127 signals a generational roster turnover reshaping the sport's elite.
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