The 2025-26 college basketball season is three weeks away from tipping off, and fans across the country are looking forward to their teams hitting the floor once more. Last season saw all four No. 1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament make the Final Four with the Florida Gators, Houston Cougars, Duke Blue Devils and Auburn Tigers.
Florida finished on top of the college basketball world, as head coach Todd Golden and the Gators took down Houston to win the third national championship in program history.
On Monday, the Associated Press released its preseason top 25 rankings for the upcoming season, which has fans around the sport buzzing.
The top five teams in the preseason AP Top 25 are the Purdue Boilermakers (No. 1), Houston (No. 2), Florida (No. 3), UConn Huskies (No. 4) and St. John's Red Storm (No. 5).
Purdue's spot as the top-ranked team in the country had people on social media confused. The Boilermakers finished last season with a 24-12 record and lost in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament to Houston. Under head coach Matt Painter, Purdue returns much of its top talent from last season, but its placement in the rankings still did not make sense to some fans.
Another questionable call in the rankings, according to fans online, was putting the Tennessee Volunteers at No. 18. Last season, Tennessee was 30-8 overall, but its season ended in the Elite Eight after a loss to Houston.
Many fans said that the Volunteers are better than their preseason ranking.
With the season set to tip off in the first week of November, it will be interesting to see how these preseason rankings turn out when March rolls around.