Kansas, Alabama, UConn top AP 25 best preseason men's basketball poll: key takeaways

by Brendan Marks, Justin Williams and Mark Cooper

For the second straight 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 on Monday and topped the preseason AP top 25, ranking slightly ahead of No. 2 Alabama (14 first-place votes) and two-time defending champion Connecticut, which finished third. The Huskies received 11 first-place votes.

Houston (four first-place votes) and Iowa State finished in the top five. Gonzaga, which received one first-place vote, finished sixth, while Prince, Baylor, North Carolina and Arizona were second.

Kansas, which was 23-11 last season and lost in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, 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, Summit League Player of the Year. This is the 13th year in a row that Bill Self's program has started the season ranked in the top 10, and for the fifth time in KU history it has opened the season No. 1. Only North Carolina (10), Duke (nine) and the University of California (eight) started the Jayhawks. the most since the preseason rankings began in 1962.

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

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

Why Kansas is #1

Many teams have a reasonable case 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 No. 2 high school recruiting class. Houston won 30 or more games for three straight years as point guard Jamal Shead heads to the NBAThe return of forwards Joseph Tugler and Terrance Arceneaux should once again make the Cougars one of America's deepest teams. There's also Gonzaga, which returns four of five starters from last year's Sweet 16 squad while adding a number of new contributors via the transfer portal.

Ultimately, though, Kansas' collection of talent is hard to miss, and that's why the Jayhawks are a deserved preseason No. 1 pick. Not only did Self return three proven starters in Adams, Harris and Dickinson, but he also entered the transfer portal hard this spring as well, landing one of the best transfer classes in the country. Griffen, a former Alabama wing, shot 39.2 percent from three-point range last season and will be a welcome addition to 3-D shooting on the perimeter, especially next to the relatively non-shooting players of Adams and Harris. He was number 7 in Athletetransfer portal rankings. Storr, who led Wisconsin in scoring last season, will emerge as another key piece of the defense and should provide Self with a level of versatility in the lineup that he hasn't had the past two seasons. Then there's Mayo, whose pull-up shooting will be a boon for a team that struggled to score the basket at times last year.

Add two top-50 freshmen and Self has another lineup that clearly can go the distance. — Brendan Marks, songwriter

The UConno offer for the 3-peat starts with No. 3

Dan Hurley and Connecticut will try to do something no men's college basketball program has done since John Wooden's dynasty at the University of California, Los Angeles: win three straight national titles.

Last season, the Huskies returned Hurley to the first team to win the 2022-2023 title, but that didn't happen this year. Four of the five starters are gone, and the only remaining player, redshirt junior wing Aleks Karaban, who potentially chose to return to college in the first round of the NBA Draft, will have to take on a much bigger role. Regardless: Hurley's team more than deserves the benefit of the doubt, which is why UConn opens the year in the top three.

In addition to Karaban, UConn has three other rotation players this season – guards Hassan Diarra and Bal Solomon plus center Samson Johnson – who will compete for major playing time. However, if the Huskies can reasonably contend for a third straight title, Hurley will need huge contributions from Saint Mary's transfer Aidan Mahaney and five-star freshman Liam McNeeley, likely his two most important offseason acquisitions. By the time conference play begins, we'll already know a lot about UConn and its relative three-peat chances; The Huskies are part of the Maui Invitational field, which features four of the top 11 teams in the country, and then TexasBaylor and Gonzaga play back-to-back in mid-December. — Signs

The Big 12 dominates the top 10

There are multiple flavors of the Big 12 at the top of the poll. The conference features three of the top five and half of the top 10, including Kansas, Houston, Iowa State, Baylor and Arizona. The sixth and final Big 12 team in the Top 25 is Cincinnati at No. 20. This is the Bearcats' first appearance in the AP Poll since the end of the 2018-19 season and Mick Cronin's last appearance as the program's head coach.

The new-look, 16-team league includes nine programs that made the NCAA Tournament last season, seven of which are returning members, and has been the highest-ranked conference over the past six years, according to KenPom data. Kansas is the newest Big 12 national champion in the 2021-2022 season. -Justin Williams, songwriter

Arranged SEC

Nine of the SEC's 16 members participated in the preseason poll, led by No. 2 Alabama. The Crimson Tide is the only SEC school ranked in the top 10, followed by Auburn in 11th place. Newcomer Texas ranks 19th in the league. Arkansas, under new head coach John Calipari, enters play in 16th place, while former school Kentucky and head coach Mark Pope are ranked 23rd. — Williams

No love for mid-majors

There are no mid-major or traditional non-affiliated programs in the top 25, and Gonzaga is the only ranked team outside the sport's five major conferences. The closest is McNeese State, which received 11 votes. Boise State and Saint Louis State received nine votes each. McNeese is coming off a 30-4 season under head coach Will Wade in which he set the program's single-season winning record and won the Southland Conference regular season and tournament championships. The Cowboys have never appeared in the Top 25 rankings. — Williams

CJ Moore's ballot

AthleteAP Poll's CJ Moore was named to the AP Top 25 Votes this season.

Here's a comparison of his ballots:

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

(Photo: Chris Gardner/Getty Images)