The Florida Gators remain No. 1 in the Associated Press Top 25 men's college basketball poll — the first in-season ranking of the 2026-27 season, released Monday, November 9, 2026.
Florida received 53 first-place votes. Duke Blue Devils rank second with seven first-place votes. Illinois Fighting Illini are third. UConn Huskies and Michigan State Spartans complete the top five.
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All five teams are 2-0. Florida opened Todd Golden’s fifth season with wins over No. 14 Miami Hurricanes and Jacksonville. Golden now has 105 career wins at Florida, placing him fifth in program history.
Duke defeated Army and Coastal Carolina to begin the season and owns a 34-game active home win streak — the longest in Division I. Illinois scored 232 points across victories over Farleigh Dickinson and Penn — the highest two-game total ever by a Big Ten team and tied for third-most by an AP top-five team since 1970–71 UCLA.
UCLA moved 13 spots into the top 10 after beating then-No. 5 Arizona 84–75 on opening night. Arizona fell to No. 12. Arkansas dropped seven spots to No. 19 after losing to No. 9 Virginia. Iowa State fell out of the poll; Nebraska entered at No. 25 after beating Providence 67–58.
Virginia is ranked No. 6, up from No. 9 in the preseason poll. The Cavaliers beat No. 12 Arkansas by 19 points — their largest margin of victory against an AP-ranked opponent since January 16, 2021, against Clemson. It was also their first win over an AP top-15 opponent since November 29, 2023, against Texas A&M.
Tuesday features three high-profile nonconference matchups: Duke faces Michigan State in Chicago’s Champions Classic at 7 p.m. on ESPN; Kansas meets Kentucky in the same event at 9:30 p.m. on ESPN; and Illinois travels to face Texas Tech at 8 p.m. on Peacock.
Florida plays at Florida State on Tuesday at 6 p.m. on ESPN2. UConn hosts Wagner on Monday at 7 p.m. Tennessee, ranked 11th, hosts Radford on Monday at 7 p.m. on SEC Network+.
Nebraska’s 67–58 win over Providence marked its 24th consecutive regular-season nonconference win — the longest such streak in school history, according to the Associated Press. Vanderbilt, ranked 22nd, owns the longest active Division I streak in that category: 21 straight regular-season nonconference wins.
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