Florida ranked No. 1 in preseason poll

The same starting five that left the court in Indianapolis with Florida’s first national championship will start this season with the No. 1 ranking.

The Gators were the runaway choice Monday in The Associated Press’ preseason college basketball poll -- no surprise, since they have everyone back for a run at being the first repeat national champion since Duke in 1992.

Florida received 63 first-place votes and 1,788 points from the 72-member national media panel to easily outdistance North Carolina, which got the other nine No. 1 votes and 1,704 points. UCLA, which lost to Florida in the championship game, was ranked sixth.

“We appreciate and respect that people think this highly of our basketball team,” Gators Coach Billy Donovan said. “That being said, this ranking has everything to do with what we were able to accomplish last year and nothing to do with this year. We’re very honored to be the preseason No. 1, but at the same time, we fully realize we have a lot of work ahead of us.”

Pittsburgh was fourth, matching its highest preseason ranking ever in 1987-88.

Louisiana State, a Final Four team last season, was fifth. George Mason, the first mid-major to reach the Final Four and the team the Gators beat in the national semifinals, received just one point, a single 25th-place vote.

Ohio State had what was considered the nation’s best recruiting class, though 7-foot-1 center Greg Oden won’t be available until January while he recovers from off-season wrist surgery. Still, the Buckeyes were seventh, followed by Georgetown, Wisconsin and Arizona.

Alabama was 11th in the preseason poll and was followed by Duke, Texas A&M;, Memphis, Boston College, Marquette, Washington, Connecticut, Creighton and Syracuse.

The last five ranked teams were Texas, Kentucky, Georgia Tech, Nevada and Tennessee.

This marks Duke’s 186th consecutive poll appearance, the second-longest streak of all time. UCLA was ranked in 221 consecutive polls from 1966 to 1980. Duke’s streak started with the preseason poll of 1996-97.

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Jarrius Jackson, Texas Tech’s leading scorer, returned to practice after being dismissed from the team last week for academic reasons.

Jackson worked with the team Sunday, Tech spokesman Chris Cook said.

His status for the season opener on Saturday night against Sam Houston State remained unclear.

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A high school basketball player and brother of Michigan freshman forward DeShawn Sims was shot and killed while walking in a Detroit alley with two friends, police said.

Marcus Pruitt, a 6-foot-11 junior at Detroit Pershing, died of a gunshot to the head Friday. He and his friends were returning from the store, police spokeswoman Yvette Walker said. She said there were no suspects.