Fresh off a Final Four appearance and breaking in a decorated recruiting class and a set of vaunted transfers, Kansas will enter the 2018–19 college basketball season as the No. 1 team in the AP Top 25, which released its preseason poll Monday.
Kansas received 37 of the 65 first-place votes, but six other teams received top honors on at least one ballot, including defending national champion Villanova, last year’s No. 1 overall seed Virginia, defending SEC co-champion Tennessee and perennial West Coast Conference power Gonzaga. No. 2 Kentucky and No. 4 Duke, which collected 23 votes between themselves, meet in primetime of the season’s opening night in the Champions Classic, right after Kansas plays No.