Texas Basketball Opens at No. 7 in AP Preseason Top 25 Poll

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas will begin the 2026-27 men’s basketball season as a top-10 team after landing at No. 7 in the first Associated Press Top 25, released Monday.

Only six programs are ahead of the Longhorns. Florida is No. 1 and received 47 of the 59 first-place ballots. Duke is No. 2 and Illinois is No. 3, followed by UConn, Arizona and Michigan State. Tennessee, Virginia and Houston are directly behind Texas.

The Longhorns were not ranked in last year’s preseason poll, so the jump shows how much the national view of Texas changed in the last few weeks of last season.

In early March, Texas was a bubble team. A late slide nearly cost the Longhorns a tournament bid, and they had to win a play-in game in Dayton, Ohio, to reach the main bracket. Then they got hot. Texas beat NC State, BYU and Gonzaga in five days and was the only team seeded 10th or lower left in the regional semifinals. Purdue ended the run 79-77 with a putback at the final horn, and Texas finished 21-15.

Four of the five players expected to start this season are new to Austin: guard Isaiah Johnson from Colorado, freshman Austin Goosby, wing Elyjah Freeman from Auburn and forward David Punch from TCU. Saint Mary’s transfer Mikey Lewis and Marcus Spears Jr., a top recruit who joined the team a year early, give Miller more depth.

Everything is built around the one starter coming back. Matas Vokietaitis, a 7-foot junior center, started all 36 games last season. He averaged 15.6 points and 7.1 rebounds and blocked a team-high 33 shots. League media put him on the preseason All-SEC second team. Punch, who led TCU in points, rebounds and blocks last season, made the third team.

AP voters are not alone. The Blue Ribbon yearbook also ranks Texas seventh, and SEC media picked the Longhorns as Florida’s top challenger in the league race.

Seven SEC teams are in the poll: Florida, Texas, Tennessee at No. 8, Arkansas at No. 12, Alabama at No. 20, Kentucky at No. 23 and Vanderbilt at No. 24. Closer to home, Houston (No. 10) and Texas Tech (No. 19) are also ranked.

Texas will find out soon whether the ranking holds up. The Longhorns play No. 13 St. John’s in an exhibition at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 25, then open the regular season Nov. 2 against Chicago State at Moody Center. Their first major road test is a Dec. 1 trip to No. 11 Louisville in the ACC/SEC Challenge.

Miller has taken teams to the Sweet 16 nine times but has never reached a Final Four. Texas has not been to one since 2003. A preseason ranking guarantees nothing in March, but this roster gives Miller his best chance yet in Austin to end both streaks.