Inside the Duke locker room, there’s only one goal this week: cement the program’s conference dominance with an ACC Tournament title to accompany its outright regular season championship.
Blue Devil fans, however, will be inundated with the glut of basketball games making up “Champ Week” outside of the ACC Tournament. While Duke’s status as a No. 1 seed is all but assured, who will join the Blue Devils in the NCAA Tournament’s East Region is still very much up for grabs. Using the March 9th consensus
on BracketMatrix.com as a starting point, I’ve built Duke’s perfect bracket of top 4 seeds and outlined the key events in conference tournaments that could make that happen.
The current consensus No. 2 seeds: UConn, Houston, Michigan State, and Illinois.
The perfect matchup: UConn.
The rooting interest: An early Husky loss in the Big East Tournament.
Rooting for a blue blood like UConn to be in Duke’s bracket might seem unorthodox, but the Huskies may be one of the least impressive 4-loss teams in recent memory. UConn has lost 3 of its last 8 games, including a home contest to a down Creighton team and the regular season finale at sub-500 Marquette. In between, UConn squeaked out multiple close wins against similarly subpar competition in a weak Big East. On the court, the Huskies are solid across the board but with no particularly imposing star. Additionally, despite his celebrated tenure in Storrs, the perimeter oriented Alex Karaban would likely struggle to contain Cam Boozer in the post.
Despite these flaws, the Huskies are still currently projected as the No. 5 overall seed in most brackets. That would mean, by rule, that UConn could not end up in Duke’s bracket if the Blue Devils hang on to the No. 1 overall seed as currently projected. However, if the Huskies suffer another embarrassing upset, Houston could jump them on the overall seed line with a strong showing in the Big 12 Tournament. With the No. 2 seeds first being assigned by location preference, a No. 6 overall seeded UConn would almost assuredly end up in the East Region. This would have the added benefit of requiring a weaker No. 3 and No. 4 seed in Duke’s region to balance the relative strengths of the brackets.
The current consensus No. 3 seeds: Iowa State, Nebraska, Purdue, Alabama.
The perfect matchup: Nebraska.
The rooting interest: Purdue beats Nebraska in a potential Big Ten quarterfinal.
The Cornhuskers have been one of the great surprises of this college basketball campaign, finishing the regular season with just 5 losses and being one of the last remaining major conference undefeated teams. Historically, though, the flaws of these surprise teams tend to be exposed in the tournament. For Nebraska, they rely heavily on two point jump shots to score (according to KenPom they score 58% of their points off of two pointers which average an unimpressive 5.3 feet from the bucket) despite only having two rotation players taller than 6-foot-7. That lack of size and reliance on two point scoring could easily be exploited by a team with Duke’s interior defensive prowess.
Unfortunately, getting Nebraska in the East might be threading a needle: the Cornhuskers would likely need to be the third of four No. 3 seeds to ensure they don’t get sent out West (given the lack of a West Coast team on the projected 3 line). For that to happen, at minimum fellow Big Ten member Purdue would need to jump the Cornhuskers on the overall seed line, which could feasibly happen if the Boilermakers outlast Nebraska in the Big Ten Tournament.
The current consensus No. 4 seeds: Gonzaga, Virginia, Kansas, Texas Tech.
The perfect matchup: Texas Tech.
The rooting interest: A strong Big 12 tournament from Kansas.
An important initial note: by the NCAA’s own bracketing principles, there’s no plausible scenario in which Virginia is a No. 4 seed in Duke’s bracket. It’s also highly likely that Gonzaga ends up as the No. 4 seed in the West region given geographical preference.
The question then becomes if the Blue Devils would rather face Kansas or Texas Tech for a second time this season. Given JT Toppin’s season-ending injury for Texas Tech and the high ceiling of Darryn Peterson for Kansas, the answer seems pretty clear. The Red Raiders struggled to contain Duke on the interior even with Toppin, and Dame Sarr’s improvement between the team’s first matchup and now should limit potential All-American guard Christian Anderson. If Kansas has a better Big 12 Tournament than Texas Tech they’re likely to be a higher overall seed, and therefore will get preference for the more geographically local South or Midwest regions.
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