FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas’ basketball team is in The Associated Press Top 25 poll for the first time in nearly seven years.

The Razorbacks are No. 19 in the preseason AP poll announced Friday.

It’s the first AP ranking for Arkansas since the final week of December 2000. The Razorbacks were ranked No. 25 going into a Dec. 23, 2000, game at Oklahoma, which they lost 88-79 in overtime to fall out of the poll.

Expectations are high at Arkansas with the return of the team’s top nine scorers from last season’s 21-14 squad that reached the NCAA Tournament, and there’s added enthusiasm being generated by the hiring of John Pelphrey as coach.

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Arkansas also is ranked No. 19 in the USA Today / ESPN coaches’ poll released last week.

“It looks good right now, and hopefully we can back it up,” Arkansas senior center Steven Hill said of being nationally ranked. “But we haven’t played any games yet. We’d like to be ranked at the end of the year instead of the beginning.”

Razorbacks sophomore guard Patrick Beverley said being ranked should motivate the team to be ready for opponents’ best shots.

“Everybody is not satisfied with that ranking [at No. 19 ], but it’s good for Arkansas to be in the polls again,” Beverley said. “I think it forces us to work harder.

“ We want to stay in the polls and keep moving up, and the only way to do that is to win.”

Pelphrey, hired from South Alabama in April, said that being ranked is a tribute to Arkansas’ tradition along with the core of returnees recruited by Stan Heath, his predecessor who is now South Florida’s coach.

“As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t have a whole lot to do with me,” Pelphrey said. “It’s everybody that’s been here before me. The praise should go to those people.”

Arkansas has been getting a lot of preseason hype in the past several days.

The Razorbacks were the media’s pick to the win the West title at SEC Basketball Media Days last week, and on Wednesday, it was announced four Arkansas players — Beverley, Hill and senior forwards Charles Thomas and Sonny Weems — were among 18 selections to the All-SEC first and second teams in a vote of conference coaches.

“If I come in here with that SEC West [preseason poll ] framed and shined up and our ranking or whatever, I don’t think that’s what we’re looking for,” Pelphrey said.

“Those are things to talk about, but to me, it means nothing.

“ If we’re in first at the end of the year and finish in the top 20, that will show we’ve had an element of success over the course of the season.”

Arkansas is one of three SEC teams in the AP preseason poll along with No. 7 Tennessee and No. 20 Kentucky.

Florida, which won the past two NCAA championships, didn’t get any votes in the AP poll after losing its top seven players.

North Carolina is ranked No. 1. The top five also includes UCLA, Memphis, Kansas and Georgetown.