Coach K has Duke No. 1 again in preseason poll

Michigan State, Arizona and Kansas round out top four.

Duke was in good position to be ranked No. 1 in The Associated Press poll before landing Marvin Bagley III. Once the nation’s top recruit decided to reclassify for this season, the Blue Devils became the clear choice.

Led by Bagley and senior guard Grayson Allen, Duke was the preseason No. 1 for the second straight season and a ninth time overall, matching rival North Carolina for most all-time.

The Blue Devils received 33 of 65 fifirst- place votes froma national media panel in the AP Top 25 released Wednesday. No. 2 Michigan State received 13 fifirst- place votes, No. 3Arizona had 18 and No. 4 Kansas got one.

Kentucky rounded out the top 5, followed by Villanova, Wichita State and Florida. Defending national champion North Carolina is No. 9 and USC is 10th.

West Virginia was No. 11, followed by Cincinnati, Miami, Notre Dame, Minnesota, Louisville, Xavier, 2017 national runner-up Gonzaga and No. 19 Northwestern, which is ranked in the preseason poll for the fifirst time.

Purdue was No. 20, with UCLA, Saint Mary’s, Seton Hall, Baylor and Texas A&M fifilling the fifinal fifive spots.

North Carolina was No. 6 in the 2016 preseason poll before going on to beat Gonzaga for its sixth national title.

Duke had three players leave school early, but coach Mike Krzyzewski restocked the Blue Devils with another stellar recruiting class. The class is led by Bagley, an athletic 6-foot-11 forward who was widely considered the No. 1 recruit of the 2018 class before reclassifying.

Duke, which lost to Final Four-bound South Carolina in the second round of the NCAA Tournament last spring, is ranked No. 1 for the 129th time, five behind all-time leader UCLA. Duke was the preseason No. 1 for the fifirst time in 197879 and fifinished seventh in last year’s fifinal poll.

“It is an honor to be picked No. 1 in your sport,” Krzyzewski said. “At this time of the year, it truly is a prediction, so you haven’t earned No. 1 yet. We’ll look forward to trying to achieve and earn that ranking at some time during the season, hopefully at the end.”

The Atlantic Coast Conference had the most ranked teams with fifive, while the Big 12 and Big Ten had four each. The Big East and Pac12 each had three.

Kansas extended the nation’s longest consecutive poll streak with its 162nd straight Top 25, a run that started Feb. 3, 2009. Arizona is next with 98.

Arizona, USC and Louisville enter these a son clouded in uncertainty after assistant coaches from all three schools— along with Auburn — were arrested in a federal investigation into bribing players. Louisville will play under interim coach David Padgett after coach Rick Pitino was fifired in the wake of the scandal.

The first regular-season poll will be Nov. 13. There’s anearly 1-2 match up the next day, when Duke plays Michigan State in Chicago in the Champions Classic. No. 4 Kansas plays No. 5 Kentucky in the secondhalf of the doubleheader.