After the greatest turnaround in D1 NCAA history, the Miami Hurricanes have become a premier program. Moreover, the first preseason poll has been released, and the Hurricanes are ranked higher than most expected.

Miami ranks No. 14 in the country. They are the fourth-highest-ranked team in the ACC, behind No. 2 Duke, No. 9 Virginia, and No. 11 Louisville.

Moreover, they start the season against the No. 1 team in the country.

Winning 26 games last season was a great start, but it wasn't easy for Jai Lucas and his staff. He also knows that these rankings don't matter, and it only matters at the end of the season when they are trying to get seeded for the NCAA Tournament.

"It may look easy to you; it wasn't easy at all," Lucas said. "It wasn't easy at all, but, it was just the blessing of having the group we had last year and their ability to get better throughout the year and their ability to gel and buy into the plan and buy into what we were talking about. And it's the same thing with this group.

"Hopefully we'll get better throughout the year and being able to plan to gel, and then by the time we get to conference and getting into hopefully January, February, March, we're where we need to be. And that's the goal every year as a coach."

Furthermore, before No. 1 Florida, they will face No. 24 Vanderbilt in an exhibition match on Oct. 21 at 6:00 p.m. ET at the Watsco Center.

That's why we wanted to make sure our exhibition game was a big-time game because of what the first game is," Lucas said. "And so playing somebody who has size, playing somebody from the same conference, playing somebody who also is really, really good and really well coached was important. So, you take it and we'll treat it like a real game.

"Now, I probably will say we'll probably play more people than we would in a real game. Like everybody will get an opportunity. We've done that with some of our stuff that we've done so far. And so just getting a good look. It still is an exhibition game, and that's why you play it, to try to get a better feel. But we'll treat it as much like a real game as possible."

Preseason AP Top 25

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