Florida is back where it started 20 years ago: at the top of the preseason AP Top 25.
The Gators were voted No. 1 in Monday’s preseason men’s basketball poll, collecting 47 of 59 first-place votes and becoming the top-ranked team to open the season for the first time since 2006. That was the year Florida came in off its first national championship, loaded with Corey Brewer, Al Horford, Joakim Noah and Taurean Green, and then rolled right into a second straight title.
Todd Golden’s team enters this season with a familiar edge: continuity. Florida brings back four starters from a group that won 27 games during the 2025-26 season and earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament for the second year in a row. The returnees are Thomas Haugh, Rueben Chinyelu, Alex Condon and Boogie Fland.
Florida’s place at the top had been expected for weeks, and the Gators now sit in position to chase something even bigger: the chance to make it two championships in three seasons if they end up as the last team standing in Detroit come April.
Duke checked in at No. 2, exactly where many expected it to land as well. The Blue Devils return Dame Sarr, Cayden Boozer, Caleb Foster and Patrick Ngongba II from a team that was the No. 1 overall seed in last season’s NCAA Tournament. They also add a headline-grabbing recruiting class led by Joaquim Boumtje Boumtje, the projected No. 1 pick in the 2028 NBA Draft, along with Wisconsin transfer John Blackwell, who earned preseason second-team All-American honors from CBS Sports.
Illinois is right behind at No. 3 after reaching the Final Four for the first time since 2005. The Fighting Illini will lean on preseason first-team All-American forward David Mirković.
UConn, which knocked Illinois out in Indianapolis earlier this spring, opens at No. 4.
Florida, Duke and Illinois were the only programs to receive first-place votes. The rest of the top 25 opens with UConn, Arizona, Michigan State, Texas, Tennessee, Virginia, Houston, Louisville, Arkansas, St. John’s, Miami (FL), Gonzaga, Michigan, Kansas, Iowa State, Texas Tech, Alabama, USC, UCLA, Kentucky, Vanderbilt and BYU.
In Other News...
Walter Clayton Jr. Just Hit An NBA Crossroads Florida Fans Will Track
Walter Clayton Jr.s NBA path has already taken another turn before hes had much time to settle in. The former Florida guard was drafted in the first round by the Utah Jazz, then shipped to the Memphis Grizzlies, giving Gators fans a familiar name to follow as he worked to carve out a place at the next level.
Memphis has now waived Clayton as it trims its roster to the leagues 15-player limit, putting him right back into a waiting game familiar to plenty of young pros. There is reported interest from other NBA teams for the upcoming season, which keeps his next stop very much in play and leaves Florida supporters watching to see where he lands next. [Read more 🡒]
Florida Just Forced A Very Different Season Conversation
Floridas upset of Texas in Austin changed the tone around the Gators in a hurry. A 27-24 win at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium gave Florida its first victory on the road against a top-10 opponent in nearly 15 years, and it also marked the programs first-ever win in Austin. For a team trying to prove it belongs in the national picture again, it was the kind of result that forces everyone to look at the schedule differently.
CBS Sports responded by bumping Florida up 10 spots to No. 24 in its latest college football rankings, a notable jump after one of the biggest wins of the weekend. It also came in a larger SEC reshuffle, with 10 league teams now sitting in the top 25 of that re-rank, a reminder that Floridas breakthrough arrived in a conference race that already has plenty of company at the top. [Read more 🡒]
Florida Recruiting Momentum Just Put More Pressure On Jon Sumrall
Floridas 2027 recruiting class has become one of the early headliners of the cycle, and the ripple effect is already being felt beyond Gainesville. By mid-October, the Gators had stacked 21 commitments and climbed into the top tier of the national rankings, with a class built around two five-star prospects and a broad mix of four-star and three-star additions on both sides of the ball.
Among the biggest reasons for the surge is wide receiver Easton Royal, who gave Florida another marquee win after starting his process with Texas. That kind of momentum matters because it changes the pressure around every recruiting battle Florida enters from here, especially with more high-profile decisions still to come and rivals now forced to keep pace with a class that is gaining real national traction. [Read more 🡒]