{"id":72445,"date":"2025-07-18T10:56:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T10:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/72445\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T10:56:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T10:56:09","slug":"kentucky-wildcats-in-top-5-of-new-preseason-college-basketball-rankings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/72445\/","title":{"rendered":"Kentucky Wildcats in top 5 of new preseason college basketball rankings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"SE5JYh\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rotowire.com\/cbasketball\/article\/college-basketball-preseason-rankings-no-4-kentucky-wildcats-94200\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">RotoWire\u2019s Ryan Andrade has revealed his preseason college basketball rankings for the 2025-26 season<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aseaofblue.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kentucky Wildcats<\/a> fans have plenty to be excited about. <\/p>\n<p id=\"Cate6x\">The Cats came in at No. 4 on Andrade\u2019s list, trailing only Purdue (No. 1), Houston (No. 2), and defending national champion Florida (No. 3).<\/p>\n<p id=\"tqjCZ9\">Mark Pope was impressive in his first year in Lexington, guiding Kentucky to a No. 3 seed and a Sweet Sixteen appearance. With an even stronger transfer class this offseason, Andrade sees Kentucky taking a major leap in Pope\u2019s second season.<\/p>\n<p id=\"9RE18Y\">Kentucky is expected to be led by Arizona State transfer Jayden Quaintance, a former top recruit who brings elite shot-blocking and inside toughness, where Kentucky lacked last season. Pairing him with dynamic point guard Jaland Lowe, Kentucky will have the foundation of a championship-caliber team.<\/p>\n<p id=\"Y4Y3KV\">Andrade also highlights Pope\u2019s ability to reload talent while navigating the ever-changing transfer portal landscape. After navigating one of the toughest SEC slates in recent memory, Pope and company proved they belong in the national conversation.<\/p>\n<p id=\"iH7m9H\">The rest of Andrade\u2019s top 10 features some familiar faces: St. John\u2019s at No. 5, led by former UK coach John Calipari, Duke at No. 6, rival Louisville at No. 7, Michigan No. 8, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vanquishthefoe.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">BYU<\/a> No. 9, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theuconnblog.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">UConn<\/a> (No. 10).<\/p>\n<p id=\"HG0UaC\">Kentucky fans have high expectations every year, but if Andrade is right, 2025-26 could be special for the Big Blue Nation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RotoWire\u2019s Ryan Andrade has revealed his preseason college basketball rankings for the 2025-26 season, and Kentucky Wildcats fans&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":72446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[190,1339,1540,2871,1542,204,1412,357,1541,1317,1337,1338,635,1539,36016,12437,1538,62,1399,67,132,68,15829],"class_list":{"0":"post-72445","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-a","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-blue","11":"tag-college","12":"tag-exclude-from-stn-video","13":"tag-front-page","14":"tag-in","15":"tag-kentucky","16":"tag-kentucky-wildcats-basketball","17":"tag-ncaa","18":"tag-ncaa-basketball","19":"tag-ncaabasketball","20":"tag-new","21":"tag-of","22":"tag-preseason","23":"tag-rankings","24":"tag-sea","25":"tag-sports","26":"tag-top","27":"tag-united-states","28":"tag-unitedstates","29":"tag-us","30":"tag-wildcats"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114873878614618701","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}