The two preseason polls differ on one team, UCLA

The AP and coaches' preseason men's polls, both released on October 19, 2026, each rank 25 teams, and 24 of them are the same. The exception on each side is a team the other poll left out. UCLA is 22nd in the AP poll and absent from the coaches'. Purdue is 24th in the coaches' poll and absent from the AP.

Both played on opening day, November 2. UCLA beat Arizona 84-75 and Purdue lost to Gonzaga 78-72, both at neutral sites in Las Vegas. Arizona was fifth in the AP poll and fourth in the coaches'.

This piece sets the two polls side by side and then checks how all 25 AP-ranked teams did in the first three days, November 2 to 4. The ranks are the official values for each poll as released. The games are the finished results for those days.

How closely the polls agree

Florida is first in both, then Duke, then Illinois. The same 10 teams make up the top 10 in each, though in a slightly different order. UConn and Arizona swap fourth and fifth, and Tennessee, Virginia and Houston rearrange places eight to ten.

AP rank	Team	Coaches' rank
1	Florida	1
2	Duke	2
3	Illinois	3
4	UConn	5
5	Arizona	4
6	Michigan State	6
7	Texas	7
8	Tennessee	9
9	Virginia	10
10	Houston	8
11	Louisville	11
12	Arkansas	13
13	St. John's	T-14
14	Miami	17
15	Gonzaga	12
16	Michigan	20
17	Kansas	T-18
18	Iowa State	T-14
19	Texas Tech	16
20	Alabama	T-18
21	USC	22
22	UCLA	Not ranked
23	Kentucky	23
24	Vanderbilt	21
25	BYU	25

The coaches' poll has two ties, at 14th and 18th, shown as T-14 and T-18.

Of the 24 teams in both polls, eight hold the same rank in each: Florida, Duke, Illinois, Michigan State, Texas, Louisville, Kentucky and BYU. Sixteen are within one place, and 18 within two. The average gap is 1.33 places. The largest is four, for Michigan, 16th in the AP poll and 20th in the coaches'. Six teams differ by three places or more: Miami, Gonzaga, Michigan, Iowa State, Texas Tech and Vanderbilt.

First-place votes go to the same three teams in both polls. Florida has 47 in the AP poll and 20 in the coaches'. Duke has 10 and 8, and Illinois has 2 and 2. No other team received one.

How the AP-ranked teams started

All 25 AP-ranked teams have played. They have played 25 team-games across 23 games, because Florida met Miami and UCLA met Arizona. Their record is 22-3.

Venue	Team-games	Record
Home	18	18-0
Neutral site	7	4-3
Away	0	none played

At home the ranked teams won by an average of 34.3 points, with a median of 34. The closest was Louisville's 84-70 win over Chattanooga, by 14. Every opponent was a Division I team.

All three losses came at neutral sites:

• Miami (14th) lost 67-77 to Florida (first) in the Tip-Off Classic.
• Arizona (fifth) lost 75-84 to UCLA (22nd) in Las Vegas.
• Iowa State (18th) lost 76-80 to Memphis, which is not in either poll.

The neutral-site wins were Florida over Miami, UCLA over Arizona, Gonzaga over Purdue 78-72 and BYU over Ohio State 94-83. That makes seven team-games from five neutral games, four won and three lost.

What the numbers show, and what we read into them

The numbers show two polls that are close and a first week that tested them only at neutral sites. Every home game was a win. Every loss was a neutral-site game. The one team each poll had that the other did not both played the same night and split: UCLA won, Purdue lost.

What it means is our reading. One game is not a ranking. UCLA's win over a top-five team is a point for the AP poll's choice. Purdue's loss to Gonzaga, 12th in the coaches' poll, is not evidence against Purdue's 24th place there. The 18-0 home record is not a measure of strength either, because it comes against unranked opponents, and the opening week had a large share of lopsided games that we looked at separately.

The neutral-site games are the useful ones so far: four of the five were decided by 10 points or fewer. As more of them arrive, the question is whether the two polls keep agreeing about who wins them.