Duke is in a familiar place to open the college basketball season.

The Blue Devils are the runaway choice for No. 1 in The Associated Press preseason Top 25 on Monday. It is the eighth time Duke has held the preseason No. 1 ranking. North Carolina has the most preseason No. 1s with nine and UCLA also has eight.

The Blue Devils, who return three starters from last season’s team and have what is considered one of the top recruiting classes in the nation, received 58 of the 65 first-place votes from the national media panel.

Kentucky, which had two No. 1 votes, is second, while Kansas is third. Defending national champion Villanova had four first-place votes and was fourth while Oregon, which had the other No. 1 vote, is fifth.

North Carolina, Xavier, Virginia, Wisconsin and Arizona round out the top 10.

The Atlantic Coast Conference and Big Ten are tied with five ranked teams each while the Big 12 has four.

n In their college basketball history, the Blue Devils have spent a total of 128 weeks in the nation’s top spot, calculated from 1996 to 2017.

That, however, is not at the top of the list – that belongs to UCLA, with 134 weeks (from 1964 to 2007). The next highest totals belong to Kentucky (115), North Carolina (113) and Kansas (62).

NORTH CAROLINA STATE: The NCAA has ruled that North Carolina State freshman center Omer Yurtseven must sit the first nine games after examining his amateur status following Yurtseven’s overseas career.

The school on Monday announced the ruling, which requires the Istanbul, Turkey native to sit the first 30 percent of the regular season and pay $1,000 to a charity of his choice before becoming eligible to play.

The five-star, 18-year-old prospect will play his first regular-season game against Appalachian State on Dec. 15. He will be eligible to practice and play in the team’s exhibition games. He won’t miss any of the team’s 18 games in Atlantic Coast Conference play.