Florida basketball is No. 3 in preseason AP Poll. But does it mean anything?

College basketball season is nearly upon us.

With the preseason AP Poll live, in conjunction with KenPom’s rating system setting its numerical standings, we’re three weeks away from first tip. Media days loom, practices gear up and teams will surely book non-conference flights.

In Gainesville, the anticipation couldn’t be any higher, especially with Florida football resting at 2-4. Around Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, you can regularly hear fans joke, “It’s basketball season, anyway.” Lucky for them, it now is, and Florida found itself at No. 3 in AP’s preseason rankings behind only No. 1 Purdue and No. 2 Houston. Most experts project the Gators to win the SEC, and, thus, a second consecutive No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament wouldn’t be far from reality, either.

However, the accuracy of preseason rankings is a spectacle of its own. Over the last 20 years, 60 teams have been in the top 3 of the preseason AP Poll, but let’s eliminate the 2019-20 season due to not having a conclusion. Then you have 57 teams. (Avert your eyes, Gators.)

Only six of the 57 winning the national title is most startling. That 10.5% rate isn’t inspiring for any team ranked as high as Florida to start a season, or the media that’s tasked with assembling the rankings. More jarring is that the same number of teams have either lost in the Round of 64 or missed the tournament entirely.

“We got to go after it every day, because that’s how you get ready for the season,” Florida guard Urban Klavzar said. “Now we’re the national champions, so I feel like everybody’s really looking forward to playing against us.”

In some ways, he’s right. Having the target on your back means you get everyone else’s best. Losing comes a little more naturally. Another phenomenon at play, though, is an adjustment in how teams are assembling themselves, especially given that three preseason top-3 squads since 2022 have ultimately fallen to unranked at some point in the season.

With the transfer portal fab in full swing and the rate of up-transfers rapidly increasing (where players leap from a mid-major to a Power Four school), the ability to quantify the talent on a roster is all the more difficult. Jimmy from SUNY Albany isn’t an easy scout.

So preseason projections, as fun as they may be, are a glorified guess. Here are some more numbers:

Of the past 20 years’ preseason top 3 teams, 24 have won their conference tournament (42.1%), but 13 didn’t win a single game in their conference tournament.

Eighteen made the Final Four (31.6%), which should inspire Florida’s repeat opportunities. But the average tournament finish was in the Elite Eight.

They average 28 victories, but their most consistent final ranking is only No. 11. And over the past three years, each of those numbers has sunk.

Seven have been unranked at the end of the year, while 17.5% departed from the rankings at some point during the season, and only one (Michigan State 2019-20) climbed back into the top 10.

Just for fun: Only two preseason No. 1 teams have won the title. One: Florida in 2006-07.

For whatever it’s worth, the SEC media also released its preseason projections, and Florida was atop that, as well. That delineation is a little more inspiring, as five of the last 10 preseason SEC favorites won the conference. However, that only includes one of the last six.

Florida, for that matter, is hoping to buck a trend. The last SEC preseason favorite to make the Final Four was Kentucky’s 38-1 Karl Anthony-Towns and Devin Booker band in 2015. The last SEC team to repeat as national champion was Florida in 2007.

“Obviously that’s going to be in the back of our minds,” preseason second-team All-SEC forward Thomas Haugh said. “But I think this team’s mature enough and confident enough to move on to the next year.”

In its own right, Florida returns more production than most of this year’s top-ranked teams, which could yield some predictability. The Gators feature the entirety of their front court that won the title last year, including Haugh and preseason first-team All-SEC forward Alex Condon.

But while supplementing the loss of three All-SEC-level guards, coach Todd Golden turned to the transfer portal, bringing in top-30 prospects Boogie Fland (Arkansas) and Xaivian Lee (Princeton).

In pursuit of playing at the level its preseason ranking suggests, Florida aims to strike a balance, especially with the new contributors who haven’t danced on the sport’s grandest stage quite yet.

“I want the guys that were here to take pride in defending and doing everything they can to get us back there, but on a holistic approach with this team, it wouldn’t be fair to the new guys to be pouring into that,” Golden said. “We got a lot of steps to go before we get back there.”