Florida opens 2026-27 as No. 1 in preseason AP Top 25
Web StoryWatch this story in 15 seconds →Key takeaways
- Florida took 47 of 59 first-place votes in the preseason AP Top 25, released October 19. Duke is second and Illinois is third.
- The Gators kept their whole star front line. Thomas Haugh, Alex Condon and Rueben Chinyelu all turned down the NBA draft.
- Florida opens the real season against number 14 Miami on November 2 in Tampa. It is an instant test against a top-15 rival.
Florida is the preseason number one team in college basketball. The Associated Press released its first poll on October 19. The Gators took 47 of 59 first-place votes, so most voters agreed. Florida starts the season at number one for the first time since 2007.
What happened
The AP poll is the most watched ranking in college basketball It comes out before the season and then every week This year the voters made a clear pick
Florida is number one with 47 first-place votes Duke is second with 10 votes Illinois is third with two votes
Connecticut is fourth and Arizona is fifth, according to Field Level Media
The rest of the top ten goes like this Michigan State is sixth Texas is seventh
Tennessee is eighth Virginia is ninth Houston is tenth
The SEC leads all conferences with seven teams in the poll The Big 12 has six teams
This is only the second time Florida has opened a season at number one The last time was 2007, when the Gators were defending champions That team won back-to-back titles, according to SI
Florida does not get to defend a title this year Last season ended in an early exit The Gators lost to Iowa in the second round of the NCAA Tournament
They were a number one seed and opened the year at number three, but a bad stretch knocked them out of the polls for a while
The defending national champion is Michigan, not Florida. Michigan opens at number 16. The Wolverines lost their coach and four of five starters to the NBA, according to Field Level Media. Voters clearly thought the roster was too thin to rank near the top.
Why it matters
Rankings are just votes, but this one tells a simple story Florida kept its best players while most top teams did not Four of five starters return from a team that went 16-2 in SEC play, according to Field Level Media
Those four players scored more than 60 percent of the team's points last year, according to WRUF
The front line is the reason voters are excited Thomas Haugh is a junior who gave up the 2026 NBA Draft on April 21 to return He led the team with about 17 points per game last season
He was also named SEC Preseason Player of the Year, according to SI Alex Condon is an All-SEC senior He turned down the NBA draft after averaging about 15 points and eight rebounds per game, according to NGSC Sports
Rueben Chinyelu was the 2026 Naismith Defensive Player of the Year, according to WRUF That is the award for the best defender in the country
The backcourt is strong too Boogie Fland led the team with 61 steals last season and scored about 12 points per game, according to WRUF Denzel Aberdeen is back after a year at Kentucky
He shot about 36 percent from three-point range and earned a fifth year of eligibility, according to SI Eleven players from last year's roster are back in total
Coach Todd Golden says the group feels more settled than last year "I don't feel as stressed going into the season," Golden said last month, according to SI "We have a good foundation built
" He added that the team is further along than in past years and can try things it could not before
The depth also shows in the young players Sophomores CJ Ingram and Alex Lloyd barely played as freshmen Ingram, a Hawthorne native, hit eight of his 16 three-pointers last season in just 21 games
Lloyd played 17 games and averaged less than five minutes, according to WRUF Associate coach Korey McCray said the staff values role players as much as stars "We value role players just as much as we value impact players," McCray said, according to WRUF
Both players say winning is the only goal "I want to win," Lloyd said "Whatever it takes, I'll do it
"
What happens next
Florida does not get a soft start The Gators open the season against number 14 Miami on November 2 in Tampa That is a top-15 rivalry game on day one
Fans checking how to follow the new season can read our 2026-27 season tip-off guide
There is already one warning sign Florida lost to Baylor in a Sunday exhibition in Jacksonville The Gators made only four of 29 three-point shots
Golden was not panicking "I'm pretty grateful it's not November 2nd right now," he said after the loss, according to SI He said exhibitions exist to learn from mistakes
Florida closed the preseason with a final exhibition against Stetson on October 27.
The full schedule is full of tests The Gators face eight ranked teams this season That list includes second-ranked Duke, seventh-ranked Texas twice, and eighth-ranked Tennessee, according to SI
Florida also plays in the Players 8 Tournament in Las Vegas Depending on results there, the Gators could face number 10 Houston or number 17 Kansas You can compare the whole landscape in our 2026-27 season standings preview
The season ends at the Final Four in Detroit in 2027, according to NGSC Sports. The road there starts now. For a contrast in how a new season begins across sports, see today's Thunder vs Cavaliers Monday preview.
Preseason rankings do not win games Florida learned that last year But a roster this experienced is rare
Most contenders lost their best players to the NBA Florida kept its core That is why the voters put the Gators at number one
Now the team has to prove them right
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