No. 1 Houston leapfrogs Purdue in AP Top 25 poll - ESPN

The first regular-season AP Top 25 is typically an overhaul from the preseason poll as voters get a better sense of how good teams might actually be.

This season certainly is no different.

First-place votes in parentheses.

Houston was No. 1 in the poll released Monday, swapping spots with Purdue by earning three more points overall. The Cougars received 18 first-place votes from a 61-person media panel, and Purdue had 36, with four other teams also getting at least one.

UConn, Duke and Arizona round out the top five in a chaotic poll that saw only four teams hold their positions from the preseason poll, yet no one moved in or out of the poll.

Houston, which lost to Florida in last spring's national championship game, is No. 1 for the first time since a three-week stint in 2024.

The Boilermakers were ranked No. 1 in the preseason poll for the first time in program history and opened the season with a pair of wins. Purdue had a hard time shaking Oakland in an 87-77 win Friday, though, and some Top 25 voters dropped the Boilermakers out of the top five on their ballots.

«Yeah, I mean, we just beat Oakland by 10 points. Credit to them, they played a great game,» Purdue guard Fletcher Loyer said. «But if we're supposed to be the No. 1 team in the country, we've got to be better than that, and it starts at the defensive end.»

Houston had no trouble in its first two games, blowing out Lehigh and Towson by an average of 18 points.

Rising and falling

Arizona moved up eight places from No. 13 after an impressive win over reigning champion and then-No. 3 Florida in Las Vegas. No. 8 Alabama moved up seven places following Saturday's 103-96 win over then-No. 5 St. John's at Madison Square Garden.

No. 18 North Carolina also climbed