Blue Devils No. 1

Duke and Michigan State top the first AP men’s college basketball poll of the season.

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

Led by Bagley and senior guard Grayson Allen, Duke was the preseason No. 1 for the second straight season and ninth time overall, matching rival North Carolina for most all-time. The Blue Devils received 33 of 65 first-place votes from a national media panel in the AP Top 25 released on Wednesday.

No. 2 Michigan State received 13 first-place votes, No. 3 Arizona 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 Southern California 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 first time.

Purdue was No. 20, with UCLA, Saint Mary’s, Seton Hall, Baylor and Texas A&M filling the final five spots.

Russian skier banned from Olympics

In a landmark verdict that indicates Russia conspired to run a doping program at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, a cross-country skier who won a gold medal was disqualified by the IOC on Wednesday.

All results for Alexander Legkov in Sochi were wiped from the record and he was banned for life from attending another Olympics.

A second Russian crosscountry skier was also disqualified and banned by the International Olympic Committee on Wednesday, while cases implicating 26 more Russian athletes in a Sochi doping conspiracy are pending.

With calls to ban Russia’s team from next year’s Pyeongchang Olympics likely to increase, the IOC’s executive board will meet next month to discuss the matter.