Two Triangle men’s basketball teams are ranked in the preseason Associated Press Top 25 college basketball poll, which was released on Monday.
Duke came in at No. 6, while North Carolina is slotted at No. 25. N.C. State — bolstered by head coach Will Wade’s arrival and a revamped roster — is the first team outside the poll, just three points behind the Tar Heels. Purdue, meanwhile, made history by earning its first preseason No. 1 in program history. The ACC as a whole had three teams ranked, with Louisville at No. 11. The Big 12, Big Ten and SEC dominated the poll with six teams each — making up 72% of the field.
After earning four NCAA Tournament bids last season, the ACC will need some teams to outperform expectations for the conference to have a rebound year. It’s possible, even as commissioner Jim Phillips contended yet again at this year’s ACC Tipoff he remains “restless” with the general state of men’s hoops in the league.
“This is, historically in men’s college [basketball], the very best conference in the country… we don’t have a problem winning when we get into the tournament,” Phillips said last week in Charlotte. “We’ve had a problem getting into the tournament.”
Blue Devils lead ACC in preseason poll
Coming off a Final Four run, Jon Scheyer’s Duke squad enters the preseason as the highest-ranked ACC program in the AP poll.
The Blue Devils, who are without No. 1 NBA Draft pick Cooper Flagg this season, will be tested early thanks to a grueling non-conference schedule filled with ranked opponents: No. 3 Florida, No. 7 Michigan, No. 10 Texas Tech, No. 14 Arkansas, No. 19 Kansas and No. 22 Michigan State. The regular season tips off against Texas, a team that just fell short of the Top 25 and stands as the nation’s fourth-highest “others receiving votes” team in the preseason poll.
Duke will also take on No. 18 Tennessee on Oct. 26 at Food City Center in Knoxville in the Blue Devils’ second exhibition game.
This demanding schedule is by design. Scheyer said in September that he and his staff intentionally built the daunting slate and didn’t want a “cruise.”
“We set it up to learn and be at our best at the end,” Scheyer said in a September press conference, later adding. “Certain nights, I’ll stay up a little bit later thinking, ‘What did I do?’ But in the moment, it definitely made sense. I think it makes sense, but there’s no question it’s going to be challenging and exciting.”
Tar Heels sneak in at No. 25
North Carolina just managed to grab a spot in the preseason poll, sneaking in at No. 25.
The Tar Heels are coming off a roller-coaster season in which they posted a 23-14 record and were selected last for the NCAA Tournament. UNC’s postseason was brief: the team lost in the first round of the Big Dance after winning a First Four game in Dayton.
A new-look roster will take the floor this year, with only two scholarship players returning from the 2024-2025 squad. Senior guard Seth Trimble is the lone returning starter for coach Hubert Davis. This squad boasts more positional size, as Davis emphasized at last week’s ACC Tipoff, and will face a tall task early. The Tar Heels travel to Salt Lake City for a preseason contest against No. 8 BYU at the Delta Center on Oct. 24. The Cougars are headlined by AJ Dybantsa, the nation’s No. 1 recruit in the 2025 class and a projected top NBA draft pick.
Wolfpack narrowly misses Top 25
Wade — a former LSU and McNeese State head coach — nearly landed his squad in the preseason AP Top 25, finishing just behind North Carolina in the voting. The Wolfpack’s reloaded roster features four top-150 transfers, a five-star freshman signee in Matt Able and a top-15 overall recruiting class, per 247Sports rankings.
The Wolfpack has already leaned into the underdog role in the preseason — especially the perception that N.C. State is overlooked compared to its ACC counterparts.
Look no further than ACC Tipoff, when the league mistakenly displayed Malik Thomas’ headshot as Darrion Williams took the stage alongside Wade and Ven-Allen Lubin.
“Shows where we’re thought of right now,” Wade joked during the press conference. “It’s all right. We gotta change that. We gotta get a little better.”
Here’s the full 2025-26 Associated Press preseason top 25men’s college basketball poll:
1. Purdue (35 first-place votes) 2. Houston (16) 3. Florida (8) 4. UConn (2) 5. St. John’s 6. Duke 7. Michigan 8. BYU 9. Kentucky 10. Texas Tech 11. Louisville 12. UCLA 13. Arizona 14. Arkansas 15. Alabama 16. Iowa State 17. Illinois 18. Tennessee 19. Kansas 20. Auburn 21. Gonzaga 22. Michigan State 23. Creighton 24. Wisconsin 25. North Carolina
Others receiving votes: N.C. State (101), Oregon (98), San Diego St. (74), Texas (35), Ohio State (23), Kansas State (13), Mississippi (11) USC (10), Missouri (8), Washington (7), Vanderbilt (7), Iowa (6), Boise St. (4), Mississippi State (3), VCU (2), Virginia (2), Saint Mary’s (2), Indiana (1), Oklahoma (1), Baylor (1)
