Duke should and will move to No. 1 in the Associated Press Top 25 poll when it updates Monday. It’ll be the byproduct of the Blue Devils’ 25-2 record that features a national-best 12 Quadrant 1 wins, zero losses outside of Q1 and a victory this weekend over last week’s No. 1 — Michigan.
Incredible season, so far.
As I noted on Sunday’s episode of the Eye On College Basketball Podcast, the way Duke coach Jon Scheyer talked postgame, he seems to know, for the second straight season, that he has both the sport’s best player and a team good enough to win the national title. Don’t ever forget, even last year when Florida won the national championship, Duke finished No. 1 at KenPom.com behind the brilliance of CBS Sports National Player of the Year Cooper Flagg.
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Flagg left Duke after one season and took his brilliance to the NBA. He’s been replaced by Cameron Boozer, the leading candidate to be this season’s CBS Sports National Player of the Year who has the Blue Devils with 25 wins through 27 games. Flagg’s team won 24 of its first 27 games. When you add it all up, Duke is 53-5 in regular-season contests the past two seasons. That’s incredible. But the truth is that, and this is my point, the Blue Devils fell short of expectations last season when they lost to Houston in the Final Four as a favorite and after leading by as many as 14 points, so now, in the end, it won’t really matter how great of a regular season Duke has this season, if it’s not followed by the type of NCAA Tournament run its great regular season suggests should follow, it’ll be considered another disappointment in totality, fairly or unfairly.
Either way, right now, the Blue Devils have the best body of work in the sport and remain No. 1 in Monday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings. This week, Duke plays at Notre Dame on Tuesday before hosting Villanova on Saturday in a game that could decide the ACC’s regular-season championship. Right now, Duke is 13-1 in the ACC; Virginia is 12-2. So if the Blue Devils beat Notre Dame on Tuesday while Virginia beats NC State, and then if Virginia backs that with a win at Duke, the two teams will be tied atop the ACC standings with 14-2 league records and just two regular-season games remaining.
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