GAINESVILLE, Fla. — This time last year, Florida coach Billy Donovan was answering questions about being unranked to start the season for the first time since 1997.

There are far fewer doubters these days.

The Gators were the runaway No. 1 choice Monday in The Associated Press' preseason college basketball poll — hardly a surprise considering they return all five starters and their top seven scorers from last year's national championship team.

"We're the same collection of guys that a year ago was unranked and ranked 75th in the country," Donovan said. "Are we the 75th best team in the country? Are we No. 1 in the country? Probably not. We probably fall somewhere in the middle."

Nonetheless, Florida will try to become the first repeat national champion since Duke in 1992.

The Gators received 63 first-place votes and 1,788 points from the 72-member national media panel to easily outdistance No. 2 North Carolina, which got the other nine No. 1 votes and 1,704 points.

The last preseason No. 1 to win the national championship was Connecticut in 2004, and before that it was Kentucky in 1996.

Donovan believes each of his starters — guards Taurean Green and Lee Humphrey, forwards Corey Brewer and Joakim Noah, and center Al Horford — can improve, a somewhat scary thought considering Florida finished 33-6 and beat UCLA 73-57 in the title game.

Kansas was No. 3 and Pitt was ranked fourth, followed by Final Four teams LSU and UCLA. Ohio State, Georgetown, Wisconsin and Arizona rounded out the top 10.

The last team to return all the starters from a national champion was Arizona in the 1997-98 season. The Wildcats, who also won the title in Indianapolis and were the preseason No. 1 the next year, lost to Utah in the 1998 tournament, one win shy of the Final Four.

Florida became the fourth team to win the national championship after not having been ranked in the preseason poll. The others were Texas Western in 1966, Villanova in 1985 and Syracuse in 2003.

Alabama was 11th in the preseason poll, followed by Duke, Texas A&M, Memphis, Boston College, Marquette, Washington, Connecticut, Creighton and Syracuse. The final five ranked teams were Texas, Kentucky, Georgia Tech, Nevada and Tennessee.