A total of 55 college basketball teams were either ranked in the Top 25 or received votes in the preseason Associated Press Top 25 poll, which was released on Monday.
Virginia was not one of those 55 teams.
Kansas received the lion’s share of the first-place votes and was named the preseason No. 1 team in the country. Alabama followed at No. 2 with the two-time reigning champs UConn trailing at No. 3. No. 4 Houston and No. 5 Iowa State round out the top five.
The top-ranked ACC team is Duke at No. 7 and the Blue Devils are joined by No. 9 North Carolina in the top 10. Duke and UNC are the only two representatives from the Atlantic Coast Conference in the preseason AP Top 25, but four other ACC teams received votes in the initial poll: Wake Forest (37 points), Miami (11), Clemson (9), and Louisville (4).
See the complete preseason AP Top 25 poll for the 2024-2025 men’s college basketball season below.
Others receiving votes: Illinois (92), St. John’s (91), Xavier (73), Texas Tech (58), Wake Forest (37), Kansas State (30), Michigan State (29), Ohio State (29), Michigan (19), BYU (14), Oregon (12), McNeese State (11), Miami (11), Boise State (9), Saint Louis (9), Clemson (9), Providence (9), Mississippi State (6), VCU (6), Wisconsin (5), Saint Mary’s (5), Louisville (4), UAB (4), Arkansas Little Rock (3), Grand Canyon (3), Arizona State (2), San Diego State (2), Princeton (2), High Point (1), Maryland (1).
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While Tony Bennett’s Cavaliers did not receive a single vote in the preseason AP Top 25, which is understandable given the uncertainty of the roster following the departures of Reece Beekman, Ryan Dunn, and other key contributors, Virginia does have a number of opponents on its 2024-2025 schedule who received some preseason recognition by the Associated Press.
UVA will face No. 12 Tennessee in its fourth game of the season in the opening round of the Baha Mar Hoops Championship in the Bahamas during the week of Thanksgiving. Depending on how that four-team tournament shakes out, the Cavaliers will face either No. 8 Baylor or St. John’s, who had the second-most votes among the teams outside of the AP Top 25, in their second game in the Bahamas.
Virginia will play a true road game at No. 21 Florida as part of the second-annual SEC/ACC Challenge on Wednesday, December 4th. UVA will also host No. 7 Duke and play at No. 9 North Carolina in back-to-back games in mid-February during a particularly brutal stretch of ACC play.
Some other ACC teams will likely work their way into the Top 25 over the course of the season. For now, the media seem to think Wake Forest, Miami, Clemson, and Louisville are the closest.
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