Florida opened as the No. 3 team in the Associated Press Top 25 as it seeks to win a second straight national championship in 2025-26.
In a time of the transfer portal, past success counts for even less because of how much a roster can turn over from year to year. The Gators lost their top three scorers (guards Walter Clayton Jr., Alijah Martin and Will Richard) to the NBA.
AP voters saw fit to insert Purdue as the top-ranked team before the season tips off.
The cupboard isn’t bare for coach Todd Golden in Gainesville. He signed Boogie Fland, AJ Brown and Xaivian Lee out of the portal, and Florida added a pair of 4-star recruits (CJ Ingram and Alex Lloyd) from the 2025 class.
Still, that’s a lot of new pieces to work into the roster and a lot of production that went out the door with Clayton, Martin and Richard.
Purdue could once again be Florida’s biggest challenger thanks to an ideal blend of continuity and outside reinforcements.
Forward Trey Kaufman-Renn and guards Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer are all back for their senior years. Kaufman-Renn’s 20.1 points per game were the third-best in the Big Ten, and Smith was the conference assist leader with 8.7 per contest.
South Dakota State big man Oscar Cluff helps to fortify the frontcourt. The 6’11” Australian averaged 17.6 points, 12.3 rebounds and 0.8 blocks in his second year of Division I ball.
Purdue had to wait 44 years between Final Four appearances and a lot of good Boilermaker teams came up short under head coach Matt Painter. Success is never assured, but Painter unquestionably has the talent to deliver the program’s first national title.
St. John’s is at the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of how coach Rick Pitino built the 2025-26 squad.
The Red Storm cleaned up in the portal and finished first in 247Sports’ team rankings after making seven signings: Ian Jackson, Bryce Hopkins, Joson Sanon, Dillon Mitchell, Oziyah Sellers, Dylan Darling and Handje Tamba.
Pitino said in June on The Herd with Colin Cowherd he wasn’t going to shy away from the transfer portal, and he felt it was the best avenue through which to strengthen the roster.
“So, we’re an urban school; we’re a computer school; we play in Madison Square Garden as our home court: How can we maximize our potential by embracing the NIL and the transfer portal?” he said. “We went away from high school basketball players, although we have taken one or two to develop, but by and large we’ve gone after older players.”
Considering Pitino only needed two years to turn St. John’s into a 30-win team again, you wouldn’t bet against him finding a way to make all of the pieces fit on the court.
