In brief: Duke tabbed No. 1; GU 12th

College basketball: Defending national champion Duke was a runaway No. 1 in The Associated Press preseason Top 25 men’s basketball poll while Gonzaga was 12th, the same place it is in the coaches’ poll.

Duke easily outdistanced second-ranked Michigan State. Kansas State was third, followed by Ohio State and Pittsburgh.

Villanova, Kansas, North Carolina, Florida and Syracuse round out the top 10.

Kentucky was 11th followed by Gonzaga, Illinois, Purdue, Missouri, Baylor, Butler, Washington, Memphis and Georgetown. The last five ranked teams were Virginia Tech, Temple, Tennessee, BYU and San Diego State. SDSU is ranked for the first time.

College basketball: Washington is picked to win the Pac-10 men’s title, a season after the Huskies won the conference tournament and reached the final 16 of the NCAA tourney.

UW was followed by Arizona, UCLA. Arizona State was fourth, followed by Washington State, USC, defending champion California, Oregon State, Stanford and Oregon.

It was also announced that the Pac-10 will hold a combined men’s and women’s basketball tournament in 2011.

The conference said that all four rounds of the men’s tournament will again be played at Staples Center in Los Angeles. The first two rounds of the women’s event will be at Galen Center on the USC campus before shifting to Staples for the semifinals and title game.

The combined tournament will run March 9-12. Both men’s semifinals will be played at night on March 11, leaving the women to play their semifinals during the day. The women’s title game will precede the men’s championship game on March 12.

Associated Press