Kentucky basketball will open the 2021-22 basketball season as the No. 10 team in the nation according to the Associated Press Poll, which was released early this week.

Here's the initial poll in full, followed by takes from Cats Illustrated's Travis Graf, David Sisk, Jeff Drummond, and Justin Rowland.

What should we make of the ranking and does it make sense?

2021-22 AP Poll ...

1. Gonzaga

2. UCLA

3. Kansas

4. Villanova

5. Texas

6. Michigan

7. Purdue

8. Baylor

9. Duke

10. Kentucky

11. Illinois

12. Memphis

13. Oregon

14. Alabama

15. Houston

16. Arkansas

17. Ohio State

18. Tennessee

19. North Carolina

20. Florida State

21. Maryland

22. Auburn

23. St. Bonaventure

24. UConn

25. Virginia

David Sisk: I’m a firm believer there shouldn’t be any preseason or early season football polls until the halfway mark. I feel the same way about basketball. It’s hard enough to peg the local team, let alone everybody else. It’s hard to get a feel until late in January. Preseason rankings will be all over the map. For example, KenPom has Kentucky at No. 17. I think the Cats are somewhere in the Sweet 16/Elite 8 window. The jury on ceiling versus the floor on each individual player is still out and will be for awhile.

Travis Graf: I believe that Kentucky’s number 10 ranking to start the season is fair and possibly even a tad bit generous. Kentucky’s floor is very high due to veterans, but there’s so many new faces and right now it’s easy to question if there’s a “star” in this group that can take over games and get you a basket when you have to have one. I currently agree with David’s assessment of Sweet 16/Elite 8.

Justin Rowland: Kentucky is almost never underrated under Calipari. That's not a knock on him at all. In fact, it's a testament to the brand he has built. There's a lot of uncertainty every preseason and it's easy for a pollster to justify picking Kentucky high. There's always a ton of talent (and it's one of those things where you never really look bad for picking UK to do well). Three of the past nine years UK has started the season in the top-10 and ended the year unranked. I don't think that will happen this year but just keep in mind, the ranking under Calipari almost always starts higher than it finishes. All that said, I would probably have UK in the 10-15 range so no gripe at all. It wouldn't surprise me if this team reaches the Final Four and it wouldn't surprise me if we eventually think of them as good but not great.

Jeff Drummond: This feels like a fair spot for Kentucky to begin the season. I was thinking it might be in the 12-15 range. It also shows a lot of respect for the kind of product that John Calipari usually puts on the floor, given the Cats finished last season at a woeful 9-16. I tend to agree with our colleague, David Sisk, in that preseason polls aren’t really very useful. Nobody can really project how a team like Kentucky will fare with so many new names on the roster — we saw last season how raw talent doesn’t automatically equate to wins — but if all the pieces come together, this should be another Calipari team that is in the mix for the Elite Eight when the dust settles.