Winners and Losers of College Basketball's 2015-16 Preseason AP Top 25 Poll

The preseason Associated Press Top 25 has finally arrived, and with it we now know the North Carolina Tar Heels will open the 2015-16 regular season as the No. 1 team in the country.

Not all of the AP voters agreed. Kentucky, Maryland, Kansas and Virginia each received at least one first-place vote, which is a pretty fine representation of how much parity there should be this year.

Unlike previous seasons where we more or less agreed on six or seven teams who were most likely to reach the Final Four, every team in the top 15 of the preseason AP Top 25 has to be considered a strong candidate for the 2016 national semifinals.

Based on a combination of differences from the preseason coaches poll, differences from where each team finished the 2014-15 season or really any differences in perception, we've come up with the biggest winners and losers from the first poll of the season.

November 13 can't come soon enough.

Winner: Maryland Terrapins

Jerry Lai-USA TODAY Sports

When people have asked me over the past six months who the best teams are going to be this season, my answer has always been, "Pretty much everyone you expect, plus Maryland."

The top 10 of the preseason AP Top 25 certainly reinforces that stance. It is absolutely littered with teams who seem to always be there. Kentucky, Kansas, Duke, Virginia and Gonzaga have each spent at least one week ranked in the top three in the nation in at least two of the past three seasons. Iowa State, Wichita State, North Carolina and Oklahoma have each earned a No. 10 seed or better in three straight tournaments, so it's hardly unusual to find them in good national standing.

At No. 3 with 14 first-place votes, though, the Terrapins are the oddball, seemingly transforming overnight from an NIT staple into an NCAA championship contender.

Head coach Mark Turgeon recently addressed the change in perception with Jordan Garretson for the Washington Times, saying, "Everyone is patting us on the back and we haven't won a game? Yeah, that's kind of weird. Hopefully in the future, when we're a top-five team, people aren't patting us on the back—they kind of expect it."

Last year was Maryland's first NCAA tournament or AP Top 25 appearance since 2010, and it flew pretty well below the radar for most of the season—outside of point guard Melo Trimble's getting some tertiary recognition in the national Freshman of the Year conversation.

But recent history means very little compared to the impressive current roster construction.

In addition to arguably the best sophomore in the country in Trimble, head coach Mark Turgeon has an incredibly strong rotation led by Duke transfer Rasheed Sulaimon, Georgia Tech transfer Robert Carter, senior forward Jake Layman and stud freshman center Diamond Stone.

That's a lot of new pieces working together, but with a lead guard as good as Trimble, there's almost no reason to worry about how well all that talent will mesh.

Maryland is the favorite in a very strong Big Ten. If any team emerges from that gauntlet of a conference schedule with fewer than eight overall losses on Selection Sunday, it will inevitably have one of the strongest resumes for the No. 1 overall seed. Look for the Terrapins to be that team while spending the entire season ranked in the Top 10.

Loser: SMU Mustangs

Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports

Any self-respecting AP voter is hoping to pick 25 teams who will make the NCAA tournament, preferably ranked in the order that they will actually finish on the seed lines. However, every once in a while, a voter should deviate from that list to intentionally include a team that won't be in the tournament.

No, I'm not talking about how Seth Davis and John Feinstein habitually use their 25th-place votes to give a little bit of recognition to a good team with virtually no hope of making the tournament as an at-large bid.

I'm talking about SMU.

Two months ago, the Mustangs were destined to open the season ranked in the AP Top 25. A veteran roster returned four of its five leading scorers while adding key players in Jordan Tolbert, Shake Milton and Semi Ojeleye. Most of the midsummer team rankings had SMU in the 15-20 range.

But then at the end of September, SMU was banned from the 2016 postseason for reasons you can read about here, per ESPN.com. The SparkNotes version is academic misconduct that head coach Larry Brown did nothing to prevent, which also resulted in a nine-game suspension for him.

The players on the roster and the laughably awful strength of schedule remained unchanged, though. It's already unfair enough to Nic Moore, Markus Kennedy and company that they don't get to play in the final postseason of their careers, but it's now a double whammy that their talent isn't properly being recognized in the preseason.

The Mustangs dropped from AAC favorites and potential dark horse for the Final Four to a team that received just 112 votes to open the season. On the bright side, it's drastically better than the zero votes they received in the coaches poll. What were those guys thinking?

Winner: North Carolina Tar Heels

Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

The coaches couldn't make up their minds in their preseason poll, awarding joint custody of the top spot to Kentucky and North Carolina with 749 votes apiece.

The AP voters had about as much difficulty as the coaches in coming up with a ranking for the top six teams, but they were at least able to settle on North Carolina as the best team in the country. The Tar Heels finished 46 votes ahead of No. 2 Kentucky, earning more than half of the total first-place votes (35 of 65).

Given the depth and experience on this roster, it's a little surprising North Carolina wasn't closer to a unanimous No. 1 ranking.

It's not much of a surprise to head coach Roy Williams, though. According to AP writer Aaron Beard, Williams recently said, "There are so many good teams, I don't see how anybody could pick just one to be No. 1 at this point of the season. But it's certainly nice to be one of those teams under consideration."

There's never been much of a question about the talent of key players like Marcus Paige, Brice Johnson and Kennedy Meeks. Rather, the mystery has been whether they would stay healthy enough to survive the season and focused enough to ignore the ever-pending ramifications of last year's Wainstein report, per the Daily Tar Heel.

As long as players stay on the court and UNC remains eligible for postseason play, it's tough to pinpoint a better team in the country. Say what you will about its recent inability to live up to preseason hype, but good luck finding a program with stronger reserves than former McDonald's All-Americans Isaiah Hicks and Theo Pinson.

There's no confusing this year's No. 1 team with last year's No. 1 Kentucky in terms of sheer depth and talent, but given the pool of options for this season, the majority of AP voters appear to have gotten it right by giving the Tar Heels the top spot.

Loser: Big East Conference

Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

There was no shortage of love for the Big Ten with six teams in the preseason AP Top 25. The ACC and Big 12 each "only" got four teams into the Top 25, but more than half of each of those conferences received at least 18 votes for a spot in the top 36. Even the Pac-12 got three teams into the top 16, and a fourth (Oregon) just barely missed out at No. 26.

Apparently the AP doesn't care for the Big East, though.

Only two members of what used to be the nation's best conference finished in the top 30, and both were multiple spots lower in the AP Top 25 than they were in the coaches poll.

Villanova's failure to finish inside the Top 10 was one of the biggest surprises upon first scanning the poll.

Granted, the No. 11 Wildcats hold a 96-point cushion over No. 12 Arizona and are only 75 points away from jumping three spots to No. 8, but since when does the unanimous best team from the Big East rank behind three Big 12 teams and both Gonzaga and Wichita State?

This is no doubt the result of back-to-back disturbingly early exits from the NCAA tournament. Fool me once, shame on me. Fail to make the second weekend of the tournament in consecutive seasons as a top-two seed, lose the AP's faith.

It's all good, though. Villanova will get the chance to prove it belongs well within the Top 10 with games away from home against Oklahoma and Virginia in December.

At No. 24, Butler ranked two spots lower than it did in last month's coaches poll, but at least the Bulldogs cracked the top 30. How in the world did Georgetown and Xavier only combine for 35 points? If any teams in the country are going to use "nobody believes in us" anger to jump-start a 25-win season, it's the Hoyas and Musketeers.

Winner: Michigan Wolverines

Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

It's hardly surprising, but there weren't many significant differences between the preseason AP Top 25 and the preseason coaches poll. The biggest and most noteworthy variant is certainly the AP's actually naming a singular No. 1 team, but the second-biggest difference is arguably Michigan sneaking in on the other end of the poll.

The Wolverines were very close to cracking into the coaches poll. Connecticut and Purdue tied for No. 24 with 110 votes each, while Michigan just missed the cut with 108 votes. No matter how small the gap in actual votes, though, the difference in public perception between No. 25 and No. 26 is absolutely massive.

Fortunately for Zak Irvin and company, Michigan was able to sneak in at No. 25 in the poll that actually matters to 98 percent of the college basketball world (that cares about polls).

Now, when we look at virtually any sports website's CBB scoreboard, Michigan's home opener against Northern Michigan is listed as one of the games that at least somewhat matters. On the team schedules of Xavier, Connecticut and NC State, No. 25 Michigan now really stands out as a marquee game.

Meanwhile, No. 26 Oregon isn't afforded the same luxury. The Ducks and everyone behind them will now need to prove they belong in the Top 25. To remain one of the nation's noteworthy teams, Michigan's job now becomes proving that it doesn't deserve to drop out of the rankings.

For the sake of all those in Ann Arbor, here's hoping Michigan does a better job of defending its No. 25 ranking than Harvard did early in the 2014-15 season.

Loser: West Virginia Mountaineers

Andy Lyons/Getty Images

There wasn't a tie for 25th place, so Michigan's jump into the AP Top 25 means some team from the coaches poll didn't make the cut.

Bob Huggins is not happy about it. West Virginia got the shaft, dropping from No. 23 in the coaches poll to 28th and out of the AP Top 25.

West Virginia was one of the biggest surprises of the 2014-15 season. No one expected anything from the Mountaineers after they lost top-five scorers Terry Henderson, Eron Harris and Remi Dibo—none of whom graduated—from a team that went 17-16.

Huggins managed a complete makeover of his roster, transforming the Mountaineers into one of the most aggressive defensive teams we've ever seen. They led the nation in opponent turnover percentage, per Sports-Reference.com, averaging 10.7 steals per game.

However, the AP evidently needs to be shown this team can still compete without leading scorer Juwan Staten.

Don't expect much to change in the strategy. Led by Devin Williams, Jevon Carter and Jonathan Holton, West Virginia is going to continue to come after the opposition in waves until enough teams display an ability to do anything about it—which could take another year or two.

Winner: Connecticut Huskies

John Raoux/Associated Press

Seemingly every offseason, there's at least one team that gradually gathers steam as more and more people go searching for under-the-radar contenders.

Last year, that team was Utah. Very few people paid any mind to the Utes when the offseason began, but as analysts pored over Delon Wright's numbers and caused him to evolve from a no-name player into a preseason Wooden Award candidate, so too did the Utes progress in the Pac-12 and NCAA tournament projections.

This summer, it is Connecticut that has looked better with each glance, and the Huskies' jump from No. 24 in the coaches poll to No. 20 in the AP poll would seem to suggest people are continuing to buy stock in them.

Much like Maryland, Connecticut will be relying on a top-notch sophomore (Daniel Hamilton), a pair of veteran transfers (Sterling Gibbs and Shonn Miller), a very capable upperclassman big (Amida Brimah) and a star freshman (Jalen Adams). Assuming that's the starting five, the Huskies also have a very solid stable of reserves in Rodney Purvis, Kentan Facey, Phillip Nolan, Omar Calhoun and Sam Cassell Jr.

Arguably, the only reason it took so long to buy in is because they "defended" their 2014 national championship by losing 15 games and missing the tournament—and even lost leading scorer Ryan Boatright from that roster. But as last year's disappointment drifts further into the rear-view mirror, it has grown increasingly impossible to not be impressed with the amount of potential on this year's Connecticut squad.

Loser: Mountain West Conference

Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

Six votes.

That's not how close San Diego State was to sneaking into the AP Top 25. Nor is it how many votes the third-best team from the Mountain West Conference received.

It's how many votes were cast for the entire conference. (Somewhat surprisingly, none of them came from New Mexico beat writer Geoff Grammer.)

Ranking just 25 teams in the preseason is very difficult, but the net result is that San Diego State is projected by the AP to be the 46th-best team in the country. And if you truly believe the Aztecs are that low on the national totem pole, you're in for a rude awakening.

Malik Pope is at or near the top of everyone's list of the nation's breakout candidates. Zylan Cheatham is an incredibly talented redshirt freshman who would have been a big part of last year's rotation if not for a preseason injury that cost him the entire year. Jeremy Hemsley is a great true freshman who should start in the backcourt from day one. Add in seniors Winston Shepard and Skylar Spencer, and you've got one heck of an under-the-radar team that has always played elite defense under Steve Fisher.

With nonconference games against Utah, California and Kansas, it shouldn't be long before San Diego State gets the respect it deserves.

Elsewhere, Boise State gets Anthony Drmic back this season and has another one of the nation's most underrated stars in James Webb III. The Broncos aren't nearly as deserving of a Top 25 ranking as San Diego State, but they should be a tournament team.

And while it's none too surprising to see them completely shut out of the preseason Top 25, UNLV, Utah State and Fresno State are all going to make this conference much better than the AP voters seem to believe.

Winner: Every Team That Has Dealt with a Summer Scandal

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It has been a pretty brutal summer for college basketball.

We've had one noteworthy team (SMU) banned from the postseason, two noteworthy ACC teams (Louisville and Notre Dame) dealing with sex scandals, several West Coast teams (UCLA, San Diego State and Pacific) under investigation for academic misconduct or impermissible benefits and one national title contender (North Carolina) whose impending penalty hangs like a tornado cloud over the program.

There are no doubt several other ongoing issues that don't immediately spring to mind, but those seven have made for a depressing few months of offseason CBB news.

But for one glorious day, we're not arguing over who should be fired for what or when, why and how hard others are going to fall. The preseason AP Top 25 means that—at least for a few hours—we get to just be normal sports fans who bicker over polls that ultimately don't really matter.

It's finally November, my friends.

We made it.

Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter: @kerrancejames.