WACO, Texas — The 2022-23 men's college basketball season is drawing closer and Monday, the preseason AP poll was released.
After bringing in one of the highest-rated prospects in the program's history, the Baylor Bears are tabbed as a Top-5 team heading in to the season, fresh off back-to-back Big 12 championship seasons.
The Bears enter with one of the highest-rated recruits in the program's history in freshman Keyonte George and with a solid class of transfers and returning production with West Virginia transfer Jalen Bridges alongside guards L.J. Cryer and Adam Flagler.
Baylor is tied will fellow reigning conference champion Kansas for the fifth spot in the preseason AP Poll, which has reigning national runner-up North Carolina sitting in the top spot. The Tar Heels, who eliminated Baylor in the NCAA Tournament second round, return almost everybody from a squad that got red-hot in the final month of the regular season.
Baylor is also the second-highest-ranked Texas team in the preseason poll, with Houston checking in at No. 3. The future Big 12 team is widely thought to be a contender for the national championship.
All-in-all, five Texas teams are ranked in the poll with Texas at No. 12, TCU at 14th and Texas Tech 25th. Texas A&M, off a run to the NIT championship game, is the first team out of the rankings.
Below is the full preseason Associated Press Top 25:
- North Carolina (47 first-place votes)
- Gonzaga (12)
- Houston (1)
- Kentucky (2)
- Kansas (Tied for 5th)
- Baylor (Tied for 5th)
- Duke
- UCLA
- Creighton
- Arkansas
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Indiana
- TCU
- Auburn
- Villanova
- Arizona
- Virginia
- San Diego State
- Alabama
- Oregon
- Michigan
- Illinois
- Dayton
- Texas Tech
Baylor opens the season at 11 a.m. Nov. 7th against Mississippi Valley State. The Bears will play three games in the season's first eight days, also hosting its NCAA Tournament first-round opponent Norfolk State on Nov. 11th and Northern Colorado on Nov. 14th.
The Bears' non-conference schedule is headlined by games against No. 18 Virginia in the Continental Tire Main Event in Las Vegas, Marquette on Nov. 29th and No. 2 Gonzaga in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, on Dec. 2nd.
