ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - The AP Top 25 preseason poll in college basketball was released Monday and for few local teams in Illinois and SLU, they fell just short of making the top 25.
Illinois Fighting Illini, after a season in which the Fighting Illini reached the Elite Eight for the first time since 2005, will start the season just shy of making the AP Top 25, receiving 92 points in the poll, just 10 points shy of fellow Big 10 rival Rutgers, who received 102 points to edge out Illinois for no. 25.
Meanwhile, the Saint Louis Billikens, who will have a new coach in Josh Schertz, also received votes in the AP Top 25 Preseason Poll, notching nine points in the first poll of the season, tied with Boise State, Providence and Clemson.
Missouri Tigers, looking to forget a horrendous 2023-2024 season in which they went winless in SEC conference play, unsurprisingly, did not receive any votes in the preseason AP Poll.
However, the Tigers most-hated rival, the Kansas Jayhawks and SEC rival Alabama Crimson Tide will start the season as the no. 1 and no. 2 teams in the country respectively.
The SEC has most teams named in the preseason top 25 poll, with nine teams. The Big 12 comes in second with six teams named, including five in the top 10. The Big Ten and Big East has four teams and three teams named respectively, while the ACC only has two teams named in Duke and North Carolina.