Kansas, Tennessee top NCAA basketball polls
UConn men 8th; women are No. 4
Kansas often grabs a spot in the upper half of the Associated Press men's preseason college basketball poll, but the school hasn't been No. 1 since Wilt Chamberlain suited up for the Jayhawks in the 1950s.
This year, however, Kansas stands atop the Top 25, the 13th straight season the Jayhawks have been ranked 11th or higher.
The Jayhawks received 25 first-place votes and 1,697 points from the national media panel, edging Wake Forest, which had 22 first-place votes and 1,680 points.
Defending champion Connecticut is eighth.
The Demon Deacons were the first of three straight Atlantic Coast Conference teams in the poll -- No. 3 Georgia Tech, and No. 4 North Carolina -- and six other ACC teams were in the Top 25.
Wayne Simien leads four starters back for Kansas, which lost to Georgia Tech in the regional finals.
The Jayhawks hope they can do even better than the last time they were No. 1 in the preseason: In 1956-57, Chamberlain led them to the NCAA title game, a triple-overtime loss to North Carolina.
As for Wake Forest, it has all five starters back from the team that lost to Saint Joseph's in the round of 16. After losing its backcourt of senior Jameer Nelson, the consensus national player of the year, and Delonte West, a junior who signed with the Celtics, Saint Joseph's, No. 1 in the next-to-last poll and fifth in the final voting last season, did not receive a vote. No. 11 Duke, No. 15 Maryland, and No. 19 North Carolina State round out the ACC teams. Illinois is fifth, Syracuse was sixth, followed by Oklahoma State, UConn, Kentucky, and Arizona.Although not ranked, Providence received 32 votes, and Boston College had 7. In the women's poll, Tennessee is no longer chasing UConn. The Lady Vols are back on top. Pat Summitt's team took the No. 1 spot, the 11th time it has started the season atop the rankings -- and first since 1998.
The Lady Vols received 20 of 45 first-place votes to edge Texas, Southeastern Conference rival Louisiana State and three-time defending NCAA champion UConn.
Tennessee had 1,085 points, while Texas had 1,056, three more than LSU. UConn was fourth with 1,017.
Tennessee returns starters Shanna Zolman, Loree Moore and Shyra Ely, plus four other veterans from a 31-4 team that lost to Connecticut in the national championship game in April. UConn led the first poll in four of the previous five seasons and will try to become the first school to win four straight NCAA women's basketball titles.
Boston College, which finished 27-7 last season, picked up 376 votes to rank 18th.
