Kansas, Alabama, UConn top AP Top 25 preseason basketball poll - ESPN

Kansas was picked No. 1 in the Associated Press Top 25 preseason men's basketball poll Monday, getting the 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 No. 7, ahead of Baylor, North Carolina and Arizona to round out 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 with A.J. Storr (Wisconsin), guard Zeke Mayo (South Dakota State) and Rylan Griffen (Alabama) joining Dickinson and fellow seniors Dajuan Harris Jr. and KJ Adams Jr. — both part of the Jayhawks' 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