College basketball AP Top 25: Alabama leads 6 SEC teams in new poll
By Andrew Olson
Published:
The new AP Top 25 is out after the opening week of the college basketball season, and there have been some notable changes.
Houston is the new No. 1 team in the land, overtaking Purdue. The Cougars, last season’s runner-up, are off to a 2-0 start. The Boilermakers were dinged for only defeating Oakland 87-77.
There has also been an SEC shakeup. Alabama is now the highest-ranked conference squad, sitting at No. 8 after starting the 2025-26 campaign 2-0. Nate Oats’ team picked up a 103-96 win over then-No. 5 St. John’s on Saturday in Madison Square Garden. Rick Pitino’s squad dropped to No. 13 with the early-season loss.
Defending national champion Florida began the season as the SEC’s highest-ranked squad at No. 3. The Gators, however, stumbled out of the gate, losing to Arizona in Las Vegas. UF bounced back with a lopsided home win over UNF and checks in at No. 10 in the new poll.
Here’s the full top 25, including 6 SEC teams:
- Houston
- Purdue
- UConn
- Duke
- Arizona
- Michigan
- BYU
- Alabama
- Kentucky
- Florida
- Texas Tech
- Louisville
- St. John’s
- Illinois
- UCLA
- Iowa State
- Michigan State
- North Carolina
- Gonzaga
- Tennessee
- Arkansas
- Auburn
- Creighton
- Wisconsin
- Kansas
Others receiving votes:
NC State 87, San Diego St. 67, Indiana 45, Oregon 43, Vanderbilt 37, Ohio St. 17, Baylor 14, Southern Cal 12, Kansas St 5, Missouri 4, Mississippi 4, Mississippi St. 3, Georgia 2, Stanford 1, Oklahoma St. 1, Texas 1, Georgetown 1, Utah St. 1, Iowa 1, Virginia Tech 1.
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
