Duke, UNC Men’s Basketball Teams Ranked In AP Top 25 Preseason Poll

The 2023-24 NCAA Men’s Basketball regular season begins on November 7^th. The AP Top 25 preseason poll was released this week and it shows Kansas as the undisputed #1 team in the country. The Jayhawks received 46 of the 63 possible first-place votes.

You may recall that last year, North Carolina was the preseason #1. That didn't hold up. The Tar Heels became the first preseason #1-ranked team to miss the NCAA tournament since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985. After that, UNC head coach Hubert Davis announced that the team would decline an invite to the 2023 NIT, and their season came to a disappointing end.

This season, the Tar Heels begin the season ranked #19 in the AP poll. It's respectable without the intense pressure of being positioned at or near the top. However, expectations are a bit higher over in Durham. The Duke Blue Devils under second-year head coach Jon Scheyer are ranked #2 in the nation. Sitting just behind Kansas, the Blue Devils received 11 first-place votes. Only one other ACC team is on the list and that's Miami at #13.

The rest of the Top 25 features many of the usual suspects, including Michigan State, UConn, Gonzaga, Kentucky, and Villanova. However, two non-powerhouse programs, Creighton and Florida Atlantic, both cracked the top ten this year. And for the record, the USC at #21 is Southern Cal, not South Carolina. Sorry, Gamecocks. You can see the full ranking below with first-place votes in parentheses.