With only a few weeks until the start of the college basketball season, the preseason AP Top 25 was released on Monday with a familiar face sitting atop the rankings. The Gonzaga Bulldogs earned 55 first-place votes to wear the badge as the preseason No. 1 team for a second consecutive season, edging a handful of college bluebloods at the top.
Gonzaga was the preseason No. 1 a year ago and retained that ranking throughout the entire season, including the final rankings, which came before its eventual loss to Baylor in the national championship game. It is coming off a near-perfect season in which it went 31-1. The Bulldogs lost two stars to the NBA Draft‘s first round — Corey Kispert and Jalen Suggs — but return potential preseason player of the year Drew Timme and enrolled consensus No. 1 overall prospect Chet Holmgren to reload ahead of this season.
UCLA, Kansas, Villanova and Texas round out the preseason poll’s top five. Reigning national champion Baylor comes in at No. 8 in the preseason rankings behind Michigan and Purdue and ahead of Duke and Kentucky, which rounds out the top 10.
Others receiving votes: Michigan State 87, Indiana 41, USC 30, Arizona 26, Virginia Tech 25, Oklahoma State 25, Xavier 22, Texas Tech 17, Richmond 13, Rutgers 11, Colorado State 11, LSU 7, Belmont 7, San Diego State 5, St. John’s 5, Mississippi State 5, Syracuse 5, Drake 4, Colorado 4, BYU 3, Notre Dame 3, Louisville 3