Florida and Duke pull away as college basketball's clear top two, with December showdown on the horizon

Florida and Duke continue to separate themselves from the rest of men's college basketball. The two programs hold the top two spots in the Associated Press Top 25 poll, the Coaches Poll, KenPom.com, BartTorvik.com and every edition of the CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 for months, and their latest results did nothing to suggest that will change anytime soon.

Florida, which remains No. 1 in Friday morning's updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily rankings, cruised past Jacksonville 88-57 on Thursday night. Duke, the team directly behind the Gators, was even more emphatic, overwhelming Coastal Carolina 113-52. Both programs improved to 2-0.

The advanced metrics back up the eye test. The Gators and Blue Devils are the only two teams in the country with a KenPom net rating above +34.03, and no one else in the sport is rated better than +31.57. By that measure, there is a clear gap between the top two and everyone else.

The debate over which team deserves the top spot was the first topic on Friday's episode of the Eye On College Basketball Podcast, but the argument will not stay theoretical for long. The two powers are less than a month from facing each other on the court.

The meeting is set for Dec. 1 at the Stephen C. O'Connell Center in Gainesville, a true home-road environment on the first day of the final month of the calendar year. Both teams are projected to arrive undefeated, with Florida expected to be 6-0 and Duke 7-0.

The pairing comes from the ACC-SEC Challenge, which matched the reigning champions of the two conferences against each other. It also delivers one of the best coaching matchups the sport can offer right now.

Florida's Todd Golden is 41 years old, less than two years removed from winning a national championship, and is considered among the favorites to cut down the nets again in 2027. Duke's Jon Scheyer is 39 and already owns a piece of history: he is the winningest Division I men's basketball coach ever through his first four years as a head coach, having piled up 124 victories in that span, a record.

Golden and Scheyer are regarded as the two best under-45 coaches in college basketball, according to the annual Candid Coaches series, and both already look like future Naismith Memorial Hall of Famers. When they share the sideline in Gainesville next month, it will be with perfect records, championship pedigrees and the sport's full attention.