We don’t talk about the polls a lot because Duke is almost always ranked. As a matter of fact, we’re much more likely to talk about the polls when Duke isn’t ranked.
However, Saturday was full of upsets and it looks like Duke will be ranked #2 Monday morning and came close to being #1. Let’s look at the carnage:
- #2 Iowa State lost to West Virginia 64-57.
- #6 Tennessee lost to Vanderbilt 76-75.
- #7 Marquette lost to unranked Xavier 59-57.
- #13 Oregon lost to #17 Purdue 65-58.
- #14 UConn lost to unranked Creighton 68-63.
- #16 Gonzaga lost to unranked Santa Clara 103-99.
And in almost upsets, #1 Auburn barely beat Georgia 70-68 while Johnny Dawkins’ UCF very nearly took down #10 Houston, 69-68.
Not to get too far into this, but West Virginia is now 13-4 while Vandy is 15-3. Both programs were near rock bottom when they hired excellent coaches. West Virginia was still reeling from Bob Huggins’ awful fall from grace and Vanderbilt wasn’t exactly killing it with Jerry Stackhouse.
Anyway, all things being equal, and for what it’s worth, Duke should move up to #2 and may get some #1 votes, having beaten Auburn earlier, 84-78.
Aside from that, there are two points in Duke’s favor: first, the Blue Devils beat Auburn when they weren’t nearly as far along as they are now, and second, Auburn is without Johnni Broome, who is out with an ankle injury.
Of course Auburn partisans would argue that winning without Broome makes their case stronger and that’s a valid argument.
The best argument though is this: that stuff gets sorted out in March. Auburn is really good as we saw in Cameron and Duke is improving. There’s a long way between a possible rematch, but it would be pretty compelling basketball.
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