The Arizona basketball team was recently listed as the No. 10 team on the AP’s Top 25 College Basketball Teams ahead of the 2024-25 season. Despite a large change in Arizona’s roster over the offseason, this is their highest preseason ranking since their No. 3 spot in the 2017-18 season.
This ranking, while it seems good in seeing how good this team can be, it is the teams who rank above the Wildcats that will surely make this season interesting. Above Arizona, there are four other Big 12 teams with Baylor at No. 8, Iowa State at No. 5, Houston at No. 4, and Kansas at No. 1. This is a massive change from the Pac-12 basketball landscape in which in 2023-24, the final season of Arizona basketball in the Pac-12, there was only one other team ranked in the AP Preseason Poll with then-No. 12 Arizona was then-No. 21 USC.
Throughout the season, Arizona will play seven ranked opponents. They have games against all of the four aforementioned Big 12 teams slotted above us in the AP Poll. The Wildcats also take on No. 7 Duke, No. 20 Cincinnati, and No. 22 UCLA. The schedule for the Wildcats is harder than ever.
This could be scary for the Wildcats as they face five top 10 opponents, last season the Wildcats only faced two teams that were ranked in the top 10 at the time of the games. These teams are then-No. 2 Duke, which them-No. 12 Wildcats won 78-73, and then-No. 3 Purdue, which then-No. 1 Arizona lost 92-84. Arizona basketball went 1-1 against the top 10 teams, so with four matchups against such strong teams, Arizona will be looking to face the Big 12 head-on.