The USA Today/ESPN Coaches’ preseason basketball poll is out.

Not surprisingly, Florida is the top-ranked team. What I did find surprising is that #2 North Carolina received ZERO first place votes. Florida received all but one, which went to #4 Ohio State. Florida returns everyone and will be very good. North Carolina returns practically everyone and had a very good freshman class as well. To receive no votes is very surprising.

My team - Duke - is #11, which is a fair ranking for them. They lost a lot with Redick and Williams, but they have a lot of promise for this season with Paulus (once healthy), Nelson and McRoberts, plus a great freshman class. They will probably be in the top 10 some during the season, but will probably be in the #3, maybe even #4 seed range at the end of the season. They could sneak into a #2 if they do particularly well in the ACC, where they’re being picked to finish second or third.

The poll breakdown by conference looks like this:

• ACC (4) - North Carolina, Duke, Boston College, Georgia Tech
• Big 10 (2) - Ohio State, Wisconsin
• Big 12 (3) - Kansas, Texas A&M, Texas
• Big East (5) - Pitt, Georgetown, Marquette, Connecticut, Syracuse
• Pac 10 (3) - UCLA, Arizona, Washington
• SEC (5) - Florida, LSU, Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee
• The other three schools in the top 25 are Memphis, Creighton and Nevada.

I think it’s very possible that by season’s end, North Carolina will probably be more of a favorite to win the title than Florida. Neither team was expected to do much last year, and both had great seasons. I think Florida will have a little bigger target on them with a title, and a much bigger one than last year. North Carolina, despite being young, always has a target on them, so that won’t be a surprise for them. I think in the end, Carolina will likely be the best team in college basketball by season’s end. Obviously, that doesn’t mean they’ll win the title. But I think they’ll be the favorite.

I think some of the SEC teams - namely, LSU and Alabama - are somewhat overrated. LSU had a great run at the end of last year, but I don’t think they’re a top 10 team, especially without Thomas. Alabama, likewise, may not quite be a top 12 team, and Gottfried is just not a good coach. Tennessee I’m not sure about, mainly because I just didn’t watch them play much last year, other than the tournament games where they were far less than impressive. Granted, they beat Florida twice, but Florida wasn’t the Florida we saw in March all year long, and Tennessee finished the season losing 5 of their last 8 games.

The Big East, not surprisingly, has the most teams (along with the SEC). Of course, the Big East has 47 teams in the league now, so the odds are good for them. Pitt was strong last year, but I think I’d pick Georgetown ahead of them in the Big East. I’m looking forward to the Duke-Georgetown game at Cameron in December. I think it will give me an idea of how Duke will fare this season. Connecticut lost most of their experienced players from last year’s ridiculously talented team, but they’ve become like other great basketball schools - Carolina, Duke, Kansas, etc. - in that they simply reload. Like those three schools, they have a young but talented team and a very good coach.

It’s also a little surprising to see the Big 12 with only 3 teams, and one of them being Texas A&M. No Oklahoma or OK State, no Texas Tech or Iowa State. Same with the Big 10, with only 2 schools. No Michigan State or Indiana.

I can’t argue too much with the rankings at this point. I’ll be anxious to see how the season goes through the end of the year, and then into conference play during January. You’ll start to get a feel for who really belongs where in one of these polls. I’m sure my opinions of the poll will change in the coming weeks, and certainly a couple of weeks into the season, but this is just my random thoughts having looked it over today.

The journey to Atlanta begins shortly. And there will be much rejoicing.