Upon the conclusion of the NCAA Tournament, ESPN has released its first edition of the "Way-Too-Early" Top 25 rankings for the 2025-26 season. With all of the chaos that's been happening in the transfer portal, there are some squads already stacked with talent for next season.
However, ESPN doesn't have Duke as even the highest-ranked ACC team heading into next season. That accolade goes to Louisville.
ESPN's Jeff Borzello has Louisville ranked #3 and Duke ranked #8 in his first edition.
Full Top 10 per Borzello:
1. Houston
2. Purdue
3. Louisville
4. UConn
5. Michigan
6. Kentucky
7. Arkansas
8. Duke
9. St. John's
10. UCLA
The Cardinals are getting a ton of hype heading into next season as Pat Kelsey has already made some splashes in the transfer portal and has some highly-touted recruits coming in as rookies next season.
Louisville has reeled in the #5 overall transfer class per On3's Transfer Portal Team Rankings, headlined by Kennesaw State transfer Adrian Wooley (#7 overall transfer), Virginia transfer Isaac McKneely (#13 overall transfer), and Xavier transfer Ryan Conwell (#17 overall transfer).
The Cardinals are also bringing in a five-star freshman in Mikel Brown Jr., the #6 overall prospect and #2 point guard in the class of 2025 per 247sports.
As Louisville has already reloaded its roster for next season, the Duke basketball program is beginning a rebuild of its own as potentially the entire starting five for the Blue Devils could be different than it was in 2024-25.
Cooper Flagg, Khaman Maluach, and Kon Knueppel will all be headed to the NBA, and it's more likely than not that Tyrese Proctor will declare for the NBA Draft as well.
Sion James and Mason Gillis are both out of eligibility, and there are a couple of guys with interesting decisions to make regarding staying in Durham, hitting the transfer portal, or heading to the NBA, most notably Isaiah Evans and Caleb Foster.
Scheyer did his work in the portal last offseason and crafted a perfectly-built roster around Flagg, his freshman sensation. He and the rest of his staff will need to do their homework in the portal this offseason as the Blue Devils' backcourt will be wiped away for the most part.
Duke is bringing in the #1 overall 2025 recruiting class, headlined by twins Cameron and Cayden Boozer. Scheyer will now be looking at pieces in the portal to put around his young stars as Duke looks for another National Championship push in 2026.