Florida Gators basketball ranked No. 1 on final AP Top 25 Poll

Summarize and humanize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in EnglishFlorida entered the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament ranked No. 3 in the country on AP Top 25, and a national championship run has the Gators up to No. 1 to end the 2024-25 season.Florida earned all 61 first-place votes after taking down No. 2 Houston in the title game, 65-63. Duke dropped two spots to No. 3, and Auburn and Tennessee round out the top 5. Alabama checks in at No. 6, Michigan State is No. 7 and two of Florida’s NCAA Tournament foes, Texas Tech and Maryland, are Nos. 8 and 9, respectively. Michigan took the biggest jump inside the top 10 to join the group.Purdue (+8), Arizona (+6) and Kentucky (+6) saw the largest increase in ranking, while Clemson (-10) and Louisville (-11) dropped the furthest in the final Top 25 update of the season.SEC schools in AP Top 25Eight teams from the Southeastern Conference finished the year inside the Top 25. Besides the four top-10 programs listed above, Kentucky is No. 12 and the trio of Ole Miss, Texas A&M and Arkansas make up the Nos. 18 to 20 spots on the list, respectively.Missouri is the only previously-ranked SEC team to fall outside of the top 25. The Tigers earned 16 poll points and finished the year as the unofficial No. 34-ranked program in the country.AP Top 25 Poll: Post-NCAA TournamentRankTeamRecordPoints1Florida (61)36-415252Houston35-514643Duke35-414024Auburn32-613435Tennessee30-812206Alabama28-911987Michigan State30-711888Texas Tech28-911409Maryland27-992310Michigan27-1087311St. John’s31-586212Kentucky24-1274413BYU26-1071214Purdue24-1270415Arizona24-1363916Wisconsin27-1054217Iowa State25-1051218Ole Miss24-1242419Texas A&M23-1135820Arkansas22-1432121Louisville27-830922Clemson27-726523Gonzaga26-925024Saint Mary’s29-618625Memphis29-6137Others receiving votes:Drake 122, Oregon 105, Illinois 80, UConn 76, Creighton 60, Colorado St. 49, UCLA 36, McNeese St. 17, Missouri 16, New Mexico 10, UC San Diego 6, Kansas 5, Marquette 2.Follow us @GatorsWire on X, formerly known as Twitter, as well as Bluesky, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Florida Gators news, notes and opinions.