Kansas, Alabama, UConn top AP Top 25 preseason men’s basketball poll: Key takeaways

By Brendan Marks, Justin Williams and Mark Cooper

For the second consecutive season, Kansas will begin the year as the No. 1 team in men’s college basketball. This time, the Jayhawks hope to stay there.

Kansas received 30 of 60 first-place votes to top the preseason AP Top 25 on Monday, putting it narrowly ahead of No. 2 Alabama (14 first-place votes) and two-time defending champion Connecticut, which was ranked third. The Huskies received 11 first-place votes.

Houston (four first-place votes) and Iowa State rounded out the top five. Gonzaga, which received one first-place vote, was sixth, followed by Duke, Baylor, North Carolina and Arizona.

Kansas, which went 23-11 and lost in the second round of the NCAA Tournament last season, returns three starters — Hunter Dickinson, KJ Adams Jr. and Dajuan Harris Jr. — and added a litany of transfers, including former Wisconsin guard AJ Storr, former Alabama guard Rylan Griffen and former South Dakota State guard Zeke Mayo, the Summit League player of the year. It’s the 13th consecutive year Bill Self’s program has begun the season ranked in the top 10, and the fifth time in KU history that it will open the season No. 1. The Jayhawks trail only North Carolina (10), Duke (nine) and UCLA (eight) for the most since preseason rankings began in 1962.

Five Big 12 teams ranked in the top 10. The SEC led all conferences with nine teams in the Top 25.

Others receiving votes: Illinois 92, St. John’s 91, Xavier 73, Texas Tech 58, Wake Forest 37, Kansas St 30, Michigan State 29, Ohio State 29, Michigan 19, BYU 14, Oregon 12, McNeese State 11, Miami 11, Boise St. 9, Saint Louis 9, Clemson 9, Providence 9, Mississippi State 6, VCU 6, Wisconsin 5, Saint Mary’s 5, Louisville 4, UAB 4, Arkansas Little Rock 3, Grand Canyon 3, Arizona State 2, San Diego State 2, Princeton 2, High Point 1, Maryland 1.

Why Kansas is No. 1

A number of teams have reasonable arguments to be No. 1. Alabama — fresh off its first Final Four appearance in program history — returns All-American guard Mark Sears and added the nation’s second-ranked high school recruiting class. Houston has won 30 games or more three years running, and while point guard Jamal Shead is off to the NBA, the return of forwards Joseph Tugler and Terrance Arceneaux should once again make the Cougars one of America’s deepest teams. Then there’s Gonzaga, which returns four of five starters from last season’s Sweet 16 squad, while also adding multiple new contributors via the transfer portal.

But ultimately, it’s hard to overlook Kansas’ collection of talent, which is why the Jayhawks are a deserving preseason No. 1. Self not only returns a trio of tested starters in Adams, Harris and Dickinson, but went heavy in the transfer portal this spring, too, landing one of the nation’s top transfer classes. Griffen, the former Alabama wing, shot 39.2 percent from 3-point range last season and will be a welcome 3-and-D addition on the perimeter, especially beside relative non-shooters in Adams and Harris. He was No. 7 in The Athletic’s transfer portal rankings. Storr — who led Wisconsin in scoring last season — arrives as another key perimeter piece, and should allow Self a level of lineup versatility he hasn’t had the last two seasons. Then there’s Mayo, whose pull-up shooting will be a boon for a team that sometimes struggled to get a basket last year.

Add in a pair of top-50 freshmen, and Self has another lineup seemingly built to go the distance. — Brendan Marks, staff writer

UConn’s bid for a 3-peat begins at No. 3

Dan Hurley and Connecticut will attempt to do something that no men’s college basketball program has done since John Wooden’s UCLA dynasty: win three consecutive national titles.

The Huskies returned several key pieces last season from Hurley’s first title team in 2022-23, but that’s not the case this year. Four of five starters are gone, and the lone holdover — redshirt junior wing Alex Karaban, who passed on potentially becoming a first-round NBA Draft choice to return to college — will have to assume a much larger role. Still: Hurley’s team has more than earned the benefit of the doubt, which is why UConn opens the year in the top three.

Besides Karaban, UConn has three other rotational players back this season — guards Hassan Diarra and Solomon Ball, plus center Samson Johnson — who will compete for major playing time. But if the Huskies are reasonably going to compete for a third straight title, Hurley will need outsized contributions from Saint Mary’s transfer Aidan Mahaney and five-star freshman Liam McNeeley, arguably his top two additions this offseason. We’ll know a lot about UConn, and its relative chances of three-peating, by the time conference play begins; the Huskies are part of a stacked Maui Invitational field featuring four of the nation’s top 11 teams and then play Texas, Baylor, and Gonzaga all in a row in mid-December. — Marks

Big 12 dominates the top 10

There’s a lot of Big 12 flavor at the top of the poll. The conference has three of the top five and half of the top 10 with Kansas, Houston, Iowa State, Baylor and Arizona. The sixth and final Big 12 team in the Top 25 is Cincinnati at No. 20. It’s the Bearcats’ first appearance in the AP poll since the end of the 2018-19 season, Mick Cronin’s last as head coach of the program.

The new-look, 16-team league features nine programs that made the NCAA Tournament last season, seven of which are returning members, and has been the top-rated conference four of the past six years, according to KenPom metrics. Kansas is the Big 12’s most recent national champion from the 2021-22 season. — Justin Williams, staff writer

A stacked SEC

Nine of the 16 SEC members appear in the preseason poll, led by Alabama at No. 2. The Crimson Tide are the only SEC school in the top 10, followed by Auburn at No. 11. League newcomer Texas clocks in at No. 19. Arkansas, under new head coach John Calipari, opens at No. 16, while his former school Kentucky and head coach Mark Pope are No. 23. — Williams

No love for mid-majors

There are zero mid-major or traditional non-power programs in the Top 25, with Gonzaga the only ranked team from outside the sport’s five major conferences. The closest is McNeese State, which received 11 votes, followed by Boise State and Saint Louis with nine votes each. McNeese is coming off a 30-4 season under head coach Will Wade in which it set the program’s single-season wins record and claimed the Southland Conference regular season and tournament championships. The Cowboys have never appeared in the Top 25 rankings. — Williams

CJ Moore’s ballot

The Athletic’s CJ Moore is a voter in the AP Top 25 this season.

Here’s how his ballot compared:

1. Alabama (actual: No. 2)
2. Gonzaga (actual: No. 6)
3. Houston (actual: No. 4)
4. Kansas (actual: No. 1)
5. Iowa State (actual: No. 5)
6. Duke (actual: No. 7)
7. UConn (actual: No. 3)
8. Tennessee (actual: No. 12)
9. Baylor (actual: No. 8)
10. Arizona (actual: No. 10)
11. Auburn (actual: No. 11)
12. Texas A&M (actual: No. 12)
13. North Carolina (actual: No. 9)
14. Purdue (actual: No. 14)
15. Marquette (actual: No. 18)
16. Florida (actual: No. 21)
17. Texas Tech (actual: NR)
18. Michigan (actual: NR)
19. Indiana (actual: No. 17)
20. Illinois (actual: NR)
21. Cincinnati (actual: No. 20)
22. Xavier (actual: NR)
23. Kentucky (actual: No. 23)
24. St. John’s (actual: NR)
25. UCLA (actual: 22)

(Photo: Chris Gardner / Getty Images)