Kansas was picked first in the AP Top 25 preseason men’s basketball poll Monday, getting the No. 1 nod on half of the 60 ballots from a national media panel to start the season ahead of Alabama and two-time defending national champion UConn.
Kansas scooped up 30 first-place votes from the AP panel. The Crimson Tide, led by All-American guard Mark Sears and Jarin Stevenson, earned 14 first-place votes and UConn, which is trying to become the first school since John Wooden’s teams at UCLA to win three straight titles, received 11 first-place votes and is third.
Houston earned four first-place votes and is fourth ahead of Iowa State, which returns its top four scorers from a team that was a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Gonzaga received one first-place vote and is the sixth.
Duke, led by consensus No. 1 recruit Cooper Flagg, is seventh ahead of Baylor, North Carolina and Arizona in the top 10.
The Jayhawks were preseason No. 1 a year ago, too, but the season hardly went as planned. They were dragged down by injuries and struggled in Big 12 play, and a team led by All-American center Hunter Dickinson ultimately was routed by Cincinnati in the conference tournament and Gonzaga in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
Kansas coach Bill Self retooled in the offseason, landing one of the nation's top transfer classes. A.J. Storr of Wisconsin, South Dakota State guard Zeke Mayo and Rylan Griffen from Alabama are part of a versatile bunch joining Dickinson and fellow seniors Dajuan Harris Jr. and KJ Adams Jr. — both part of their 2022 national title squad — to form a deeper and more talented team.
“We welcome being No. 1, especially with our returning players like Hunter, Dajuan and KJ, and then you add the players we brought in,” Self said. “The goal is to be No. 1 at the end of the season, and though we welcome this, it is not the end goal.”
The new-look Big 12, which lost Oklahoma and Texas but welcomed Arizona, Arizona State, Utah and Colorado, has three of the top five and five of the top 10 in the preseason AP poll. The SEC leads the way with nine in the Top 25.
“To have three Big 12 teams in the top five and five in the top 10 just shows how competitive this league will be,” Self said. “Every year we talk about the Big 12 being the toughest conference in the nation and with the four additions it became even stronger.”
No. 11 Auburn, Tennessee and Texas A&M start off the second 10, followed by Purdue and Creighton. John Calipari has Arkansas at No. 16 with Indiana, Marquette, Texas and Cincinnati — making its first poll appearance since 2019 — in the top 20.
The Boilermakers are trying to win a third straight Big Ten title after the departure of AP player of the year Zach Edey.
“We have three starters back from a Final Four team. We have five freshmen. We have a lot of guys with experience outside of those three starters,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said. “We’re excited about it. We’re excited about this group.”
Florida, UCLA, Kentucky, Ole Miss and Rutgers round out the preseason Top 25.
“I’m excited about the expectations,” said Rutgers coach Steve Pikiell, whose team is ranked in the preseason poll for the first time since 1978. “We always had high expectations, and now in a league with 18 teams, you know, people are saying, ‘How good are you? There’s 18 teams. They’re great coaches.’ I don’t know where we sit. If you came to our practice yesterday, you would say, ‘Oh, boy.’ And if you came a couple of days earlier, you might think, ‘Hey, they’re going to be pretty good.'”
Illinois is tops among others receiving votes after reaching the Elite Eight. Rick Pitino has St. John's on the doorstep along with Xavier, Texas Tech and Wake Forest. The first regular-season poll is due out Nov. 11.
Four schools that have never appeared in the Top 25 received preseason votes, led by McNeese State, which went back to the NCAA Tournament last season. Little Rock, Grand Canyon and High Point also received votes.
Kansas is ranked No. 1 in the preseason poll for the fifth time, trailing only North Carolina (10), Duke (9) and UCLA (8) for the most since the preseason rankings debuted in 1962. ... Houston has the longest active Top 25 streak at 86 weeks. The Jayhawks are second at 65. ... Iowa State has its best preseason ranking in school history. Texas A&M matched its best. ... Kentucky is in the preseason poll for a record 57th time. The Tar Heels appear for the 55th time.
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Kansas tops AP Top 25 preseason men's basketball poll ahead of Alabama, defending champion UConn
Kansas tops AP Top 25 preseason men's basketball poll ahead of Alabama, defending champion UConn
FILE - Kansas center Hunter Dickinson (1) shoots as Gonzaga forward Braden Huff (34) defends during the first half of a second-round college basketball game in the NCAA Tournament in Salt Lake City, Saturday, March 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)
The path for the NFL's Washington Commanders to return to the nation’s capital is clear after an on-again, off-again saga in Congress ended early Saturday with a postmidnight reprieve.
The U.S. Senate passed a resolution to transfer the land including old RFK Stadium from the federal government to the District of Columbia. The D.C. Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium Campus Revitalization Act passed by voice vote at roughly 1:15 a.m. after more than a year of lobbying and support from Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., district Mayor Muriel Bowser, Commanders controlling owner Josh Harris and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.
“We are extremely grateful that our elected officials have come together on a bipartisan basis to give Washington, D.C., the opportunity to decide on the future of the RFK Stadium site," Harris said. "This bill will create an equal playing field so that all potential future locations for the home of the Washington Commanders can be fairly considered and give our franchise the opportunity to provide the best experience for all of our fans.”
The RFK Stadium land provision was part of Congress’ initial short-term spending bill Tuesday before it was torpedoed by President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk, the latter of whom amplified misinformation about the site on his social media platform X. Two versions of the House's slimmed-down bill, including the one that passed Friday night to avoid a government shutdown, did not include it.
Giving the local government control of the land for the next 99 years allows for the decaying husk of the old stadium to be torn down and the site redeveloped for any number of things. One of the possibilities is a football stadium and surrounding entertainment options at the franchise's former home.
Bowser called it “a win for D.C., for our region and for America.”
“Everybody loves a good comeback story — and that’s D.C.’s story,” she said.
All that awaits is President Joe Biden's signature to become law. Comer went as far as saying that Senate passage of the bill is “a historic moment for our nation's capital.”
“If Congress failed to act today, this decaying land in Washington would continue to cost taxpayers a fortune to maintain,” he said. “Revitalizing this RFK Memorial Stadium site has been a top economic priority for the city, and I am proud to have partnered with D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser to get this bill across the finish line and to the president’s desk. This bipartisan success is a testament to the House Oversight Committee’s unwavering effort to protect taxpayers and our full commitment to ensuring a capital that is prosperous for residents and visitors for generations to come.”
Playing in Washington again is no sure thing. The Commanders are considering places in the district, Maryland and Virginia to build a stadium in the coming years.
Their lease at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Maryland, runs through 2027. Harris called 2030 a “reasonable target” for a new stadium.
The team played at RFK Stadium 2 miles (3.22 kilometers) east of the Capitol from 1961-96 before moving to Maryland. Harris and several co-owners, including Mitch Rales and Mark Ein, grew up as Washington football fans during that era, which included the glory days of three Super Bowl championships from 1982-91.
Part of the way the provision got into the bill initially involved an agreement between the team and Maryland to tear down the current stadium in a timely fashion and redevelop the site with a project of equal economic impact, a person with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press earlier this week on condition of anonymity because the deal was not being publicized.
After the Senate greenlit the RFK Stadium land transfer, Maryland Sens. Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen, both Democrats, said they continued to believe their state's partnership with the team should continue long into the future.
“After working to level the financial playing field, and receiving assurances that should the team move they will redevelop the existing site in a manner that meets the needs of the community, tonight we supported the proposed land transfer legislation,” Cardin and Van Hollen said. "We have always supported the District’s effort to control its own land, and through regional discussions and cooperation, our concerns with this proposal have been addressed.”
The team has played games in Maryland since 1997 and practices in Ashburn, Virginia, not far from Dulles International Airport.
A return to the district would be another victory for Bowser, who on Thursday celebrated the start of an $800 million downtown arena renovation that is keeping the NBA's Wizards and NHL's Capitals in town. At that news conference, she took aim at Musk for sharing incorrect information on X, formerly Twitter, about taxpayers footing the bill for a new stadium.
“It was stated that the (continuing resolution) contains $3 billion for a stadium,” Bowser said. "All wrong. There are no federal dollars related to the transfer of RFK, and in fact the legislation does not require or link at all to a stadium. We’re talking about how the District can invest in removing blight.”
Musk reshared an inaccurate post saying: “Buried in the 1,547-page omnibus bill is a provision to facilitate a $3 billion NFL stadium in Washington, D.C." with the message, “This should not be funded by your tax dollars!”
The bill specifically prohibits the use of federal funds for a stadium on the site, “including training facilities, offices, and other structures necessary to support a stadium.”
AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl
FILE - A vehicle pushes up pikes of snow after trucks dump their loads of snow in the parking lots of RFK Stadium in Washington, Monday, Jan. 25, 2016. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
