UNC Basketball debuts in the top 10 for the 2024-25 AP Preseason Poll

The first AP Top 25 poll for the 2024-2025 season was released on Monday as the UNC basketball program is considered a top-10 team heading into the new campaign.

The Tar Heels begin the year as the No. 9-ranked team in the country. They are one of two ACC programs featured on the initial list, as the Duke Blue Devils come in at No. 7 on the list.

Hubert Davis and the UNC basketball program will be battle tested right away when they head to Lawrence to take on the No. 1-ranked Kansas Jayhawks during open week of the 2024-2025 season.

North Carolina will certainly be battle tested, as their schedule currently features six games against preseason top 25 teams:

Kansas
Alabama
Duke (twice)
Florida
UCLA

Along these lines, there's potential matchups with Iowa State, Auburn and UConn that could occur as well.

Coming off winning the ACC Regular Season title a season ago, the UNC basketball program will have a different look this go around. While the Tar Heels lost the likes of Armando Bacot, Harrison Ingram, and Cormac Ryan, they do return reigning ACC Player of the Year RJ Davis, along with Elliot Cadeau, Seth Trimble, and Jalen Washington and have added some reinforcements to help make another deep run in this year's NCAA Tournament.

The UNC basketball program will play two exhibition games, one on October 15 and the other on October 27, before they open up their regular season on November 4 against Elon in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.