With the NCAA basketball season just weeks away, everyone’s been releasing their preseason polls. The conference polls have been trickling in over the last week, and the national polls came out today.

The Ivy League released its preseason rankings yesterday, with Penn coming in at third behind Cornell and Princeton. Cornell is, as expected, the unanimous favorite, returning all five starters from last year’s Ivy championship. You’d be hard-pressed to argue against the conference being Cornell’s to lose.

Princeton, Penn, and Harvard are essentially in a dead heat for second place, with only 10 points separating the three schools. Yale, Columbia, Brown, and Dartmouth round out the bottom half of the League in that order.

Keep reading after the jump for a rundown of Penn’s opponents in the national polls and to see how the other Big 5 schools are projected to finish in their own conferences.

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Although Penn Athletics probably won’t officially release the M. Hoops schedule until September like last year, a few more non-conference tidbits have come to light. First up, it’s been confirmed that Penn will host Delaware some point this November.

But the juicier tidbit I’ve heard from multiple sources is that Penn will be traveling back to Tobacco Road. But this time they won’t be playing defending champion North Carolina, but instead rival Duke. It appears that the Quakers will play at Cameron December 31. So ‘t make sure your New Year’s Eve plans include a TV; the game is rumored to be nationally televised.

Penn last played the Blue Devils in December 2005, losing by a respectable 13 in Durham. However, despite that one-game away series, there will not be a return contest in the Palestra, a source said.

Meanwhile, Penn won’t be the only Ivy to face a potential preseason top 10 team during winter break.