The most Shane Battier line of all time was when he was a senior we think, and Duke briefly dropped out of first place in the ACC, where he had been almost his entire career in Durham. When Duke returned to the top, someone asked him how it felt, and Battier smiled and said, “normal.”
That’s why we don’t talk about polls a lot, because Duke is almost always ranked and it’s more of a story when they’re not…or when they get to the top.
The new polls came out Monday and as expected after knocking off
Michigan on Saturday, Duke has indeed ascended to #1.
The top four teams are the NCAA’s current #1 seeds as announced Saturday – Duke, followed by Arizona, Michigan and Iowa State.
Houston is #5, UConn #6, Florida #7, Purdue #8, Gonzaga is up to #9 and Illinois rounds out the Top Ten.
Virginia is very close to that level, just missing the Top Ten by 11 votes, and UNC is #18.
Interestingly, Duke has beaten the #3, #7, #13 (Michigan State), #14 (Kansas), #20 (Arkansas) and #24 (Louisville) twice. #16 (Texas Tech) beat the Blue Devils by 1, while #18 UNC won at the buzzer by 3.
Duke will face #11 Virginia in Cameron on Saturday, which will mean Duke will have faced 9 of the Top 25 teams, or 36% of that elite group. That goes up to 40% if you count Louisville twice and 44% if you count Tennessee in the exhibition season. Against those teams, the Blue Devils are 10-2, and, counting Tennessee again, 11-2.
Not bad. Not bad at all.
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