Grand Canyon is gaining the most national notoriety ahead of the men’s basketball season in its Division I history as the AP on Monday released its preseason Top 25 poll for men’s basketball.
GCU gained three votes — one more than Arizona State. This is the first time in GCU D-I history that it garnered preseason AP Top 25 votes.
Arizona is ranked No. 10 in the AP poll, which is voted on by college basketball writers from all over the country.
On Saturday, GCU played Baylor, No. 8 in the AP preseason poll, in a scrimmage in Fort Worth, Texas, and held its own, even without its best player, Tyon Grant-Foster. No score was announced for the fund-raising event.
The scrimmage, which aided in hurricane relief with a select crowd, was between the coaching Drews — Baylor’s Scott and GCU’s Drew — and was set up by AP Ranch founder Mike Dry, who wanted to honor the memory of the brothers’ mom, Janet, who died last summer. Homer Drew, the brothers’ father, sat courtside.
The brothers don’t want to face each other in a regular-season game, so this was the best-case scenario.
GCU won 30 games and reached the round of 32 in the NCAA Division I tournament for the first time last season. The Lopes return five of their top six scorers, and added talent through the transfer portal, led by senior power forward JaKobe Coles, who helped TCU reach the NCAA Tournament as an at-large berth three years in a row.
Coles was part of Big 12 battles against Baylor, while he played at TCU. The Big 12 this year includes both Arizona and Arizona State, who should find the competition much greater than what they had in the Pac-12.
Five of the top 10 teams in the AP Preseason Top 25 poll are in the Big 12 with Kansas leading the way at No. 1. Kansas was atop the poll to start last season but ended up losing in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
Houston is ranked No. 4, Iowa State No. 5, Baylor 8, and Arizona 10.
Cincinnati, at No. 20, gives the Big 12 six teams in the Top 25. Other Big 12 schools Texas Tech, Kansas State, and ASU all garnered votes.
Grant-Foster, a 6-foot-7 swingman, who averaged 20 points for the Lopes and was the WAC Player of the Year last season, has received preseason national attention as one of the top returning players in the country.
This past weekend, UA landed a top 2025 recruit in 6-foot-8, five-star Dwayne Aristode of the Netherlands, beating out Duke and Michigan State.
Both UA and ASU are in the running for 2025 five-star 6-8 forward Koa Peat, a two-time Arizona high school Player of the Year, who is one of the top two-way high school seniors in the country.
Peat is expected to take an official visit to Baylor next week before making his decision.
Richard Obert has been covering high school sports since the 1980s for The Arizona Republic. He also covers Grand Canyon University athletics and the Arizona Rattlers. To suggest human-interest story ideas and other news, reach Obert at richard.obert@arizonarepublic.com or 602-316-8827. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter:@azc_obert
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: GCU, ASU pick up votes, UA No. 10 in AP Top 25 preseason basketball poll
