The air is getting crisp as sweater weather begins to take over the country, which means its almost time to kick off the college basketball season. The first AP Top 25 poll of the season dropped on Monday morning, which sees Purdue top the preseason rankings for the first time in program history, followed closely by presumed national title favorite Houston.
With the Cougars looking to break through for their first national championship and a ton of player movement over the course of the offseason, the poll is our first true glimpse at how the media thinks the best teams shape up entering the campaign. Let's break down some key takeaways from the first college basketball rankings of the season.
Takeaways from college basketball's preseason AP Top 25
Purdue over Houston is a shocker
While most assumed that Houston's runner-up finish last season and a strong roster headlined by returning stars Milos Uzan and Emanuel Sharpe gave the Cougars a leg up, the voters gave a slight edge to the Boilermakers, handing Purdue 35 votes for the top spot compared to just 16 for Houston. Continuity with Purdue appears to be a big factor as Matt Painter's team brings back most of the rotation from its Sweet 16 team from a year ago, including Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer, with a strong nucleus remaining from the 2024 national runner-up squad as well.
It is fair to point out that Kelvin Sampson does need to integrate some key new players to his roster, including a pair of five-star freshmen in Isiah Harwell and Chris Cenac Jr, but their stronger finish to the season and overall talent was worthy of the top spot. It should be a fun wait to see if Purdue can prove the pollsters right with a strong performance in the non-conference season.
Don't count out Florida's chances at a repeat yet
While UCONN made it look easy during their repeat runs to titles in 2023 and 2024, this new era of unrestricted player movement makes it very hard for champions to repeat. The Gators do have experience repeating back in 2007 and 2008, so it will be interesting to see how the nation's third-ranked team fares as the hunted throughout the 2025-26 campaign.
Florida does retain some valuable role players from its title-winning squad, including forwards Alex Condon and Reuben Chinyelu, but Todd Golden did good work in the transfer portal adding star guards Boogie Fland and Xavian Lee to replace the departing Walter Clayton Jr, Alijah Martin and Will Richard. How quickly the newcomers are able to integrate could determine the Gators' ceiling this year.
The Big East will be a two-team race
As the nation's best pure basketball conference, all eyes are on the Big East to see how many teams it can send dancing. The pollsters think there is a clear separation between the conference's top two teams, No. 4UCONN and No. 5 St. John's, and the rest of the league, which only saw Creighton sneak into the poll at No. 23 while no other Big East teams received votes.
Both Dan Hurley and Rick Pitino hauled in strong transfer classes from the portal to build around their existing stars, forwards Alex Karaban for the Huskies and Zuby Ejiofor for the Red Storm. While both coaches built strong non-conference schedules to test their teams, the date to circle on the calendar is Friday, Feb. 6th, when UCONN comes to Madison Square Garden for a primetime showdown with St. John's that could set the stage for the remainder of the Big East's regular season drama.
BYU has the weight of expectations
While Texas Tech spent a ton of NIL money to build a CFP contender on the gridiron, BYU is attempting to flex its financial muscle on the hardwood. The Cougars are the second-highest ranked Big 12 team in the poll, check in at No. 8 overall, on the strength of a dynamic transfer class headlined by guards Robert Wright III (who controversially left Baylor to come to Provo) and Kennard Davis Jr, although the NBA scouts will be swarming to their games to check out potential No. 1 pick A.J. Dybantsa, who already has a massive NIL deal with Fanatics to his name.
Returner Richie Saunders adds even more star power to the Cougars, who will look to avoid the fate of last year's Rutgers team, which had a preseason ranking thanks to the star duo of Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey before flaming out to miss the tournament entirely. There may not be a team with a higher upside in the country than BYU, making it imperative for head coach Kevin Young to get his squad to gel quickly.
Blue Bloods in unusual situations
Traditional blue bloods have dominated the college basketball landscape for years, but the new era of NIL has been trickier for them to navigate. A lot of the sport's top programs enter the year with lower expectations from pollsters as Duke (No. 6, which is low for them after Cooper Flagg's Final Four year), Kentucky (No. 9), Kansas (No. 19), Gonzaga (No. 19), Michigan State (No. 22) and North Carolina (No. 25) are entering the year ranked but without the pressure to be true powerhouses.
Time will tell if reduced expectations for these power programs is simply a sign of the changing time or an overestimation of the impact strong transfer portal classes have given to non-traditional basketball heavyweights. A lot of strong coaches are still figuring out how to deal with roster building in the NIL era and time will tell whether a reliance on continuity, adding five-star freshmen or building a new team through the transfer portal every year will be the key to success in this environment.