Florida is kicking off the men’s college basketball season right where they left off two years ago: as the top dog at No. 1. The Gators absolutely dominated the preseason AP Top 25 poll on Monday, snagging 47 of the 59 first-place votes from national media. This isn’t new territory for Coach Todd Golden’s squad; they were No. 1 in the final poll of 2025 after beating Houston to grab their third national championship. Golden himself isn’t getting too caught up in the hype, saying, “It’s cool, 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.” That’s the mindset of a winner right there!
The Gators Are Built Different This Time Around, Or So They Say
Last season, these guys started at No. 3, which is good, but then completely fell out of the poll by early January. Ouch. They rallied big time though, winning the Southeastern Conference regular-season championship. But then came the gut punch: getting stunned by Iowa as a No. 1 seed in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. You know that loss has been eating at them all offseason. Golden is confident they won’t repeat that early-season slide, noting, “I think we’re more prepared this year for early-season expectations than we were last year… where this year we can use last year’s experience to learn from.” In a crazy era of player movement, Florida’s got that sweet benefit of experience. Thomas Haugh, Alex Condon, Rueben Chinyelu, and Denzel Aberdeen were all on that national title team, with Aberdeen even returning after a year at Kentucky thanks to an eligibility grant. Alex Condon summed up the team’s fire, saying, “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. 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.” That’s the kind of drive that makes a championship contender.
Duke and Illinois Aren’t Far Behind, And They’re Hungry Too
Not to be outdone, Duke rolled in at No. 2, grabbing 10 first-place votes. That’s their highest preseason ranking since they were No. 1 way back in 2017. Coach Jon Scheyer knows it’s all about where they finish, not where they start. The Blue Devils have been on a tear, winning 70 games over the last two seasons, which is a school record for that stretch. But man, those losses to UConn in the Elite Eight and Houston in the Final Four have got to sting. Dame Sarr, a key piece of their returning core along with Caleb Foster, Patrick Ngongba II, and Cayden Boozer, plus a top-tier recruiting class, is ready to make a run. He’s got that winner’s mentality, stating, “I feel like any time I step on the court, I believe me and my teammates are going to win… I feel like we have a chance to win a national championship. It’s just doing a better job this year.” Over in Illinois, they secured the No. 3 spot with the other two first-place votes, matching their best preseason ranking since 2001. They’re bringing back five of their top eight scorers, including big names like Andrej Stojakovic and David Mirkovic, from a team that hit the Final Four for the first time in two decades last season.
So there you have it, the top three are locked and loaded, each with something to prove. Florida is out for redemption, Duke is chasing that title they’ve been so close to, and Illinois wants to show that last year’s Final Four wasn’t a fluke. Get ready, because the college basketball season is about to be absolutely wild, and these teams are coming in hot!
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Fox Sports.
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