Duke Back At Number One Following Tennessee Loss To Kentucky

So what else is new? The Duke Blue Devils are once again the top team in college basketball. In Saturday’s action Duke routed North Carolina State 94-78 while formerly #1 ranked Tennessee was getting obliterated by Kentucky 86-49. Duke and Tennessee are now both 23-2 on the season. Tennessee had spent four weeks in the number one spot but dropped to #5 following the loss to the Wildcats. Duke has been the top ranked team in 7 of the season’s 16 polls and hasn’t been ranked lower than #4 since before the season started.

The rest of the top ten now looks like this: Duke is number 1 receiving 58 of 64 first place votes. The only other team to receive a vote for first place is #2 Gonzaga. They’re followed by Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. The team with the best record in college basketball is being kept down by the interminable East Coast bias of the voters–that would be the Unversity of Nevada known colloquially to residents of the ‘Silver State’ as Nevada-Reno. UNR moved up one spot to #6 despite a record of 24-1 on the year.

Michigan dropped a spot to number 7 despite an impressive win over #24 Maryland on Saturday. North Carolina is #8, Houston is #9 and Michigan State improved one spot to #10. Rounding out the Top 25 in descending order: Marquette, Kansas, LSU, Texas Tech, Purdue, Florida State, Villanova, Louisville, Iowa State, Virginia Tech, Iowa, Wisconsin, Kansas State, Maryland and Buffalo.

Duke lost to Gonzaga earlier in the season but remained at Number 1 until January when they lost at home to Syracuse in overtime. They were already playing that game without forward Cam Reddish and they lost point guard Tre Jones to an injury late in the first half. Duke was expected to struggle playing without Jones for several games but that didn’t happen and the Blue Devils haven’t lost since. Next up for Duke: a big rivalry game on Wednesday at home against #8 North Carolina.

It’ll be interesting to see how Tennessee bounces back from their beating at the hands of Kentucky. They’ll return to action on Tuesday at home against Vanderbilt before playing at #13 LSU next Saturday. They’ll play at home against Ole Miss on February 27 before a return engagement with Kentucky on Saturday, March 2. Games against Mississippi State and at Auburn will conclude the Vols’ regular season schedule.

Even when they weren’t rank Number One this season, Duke has been the top choice among bettors to win the National Championship. The current college basketball futures odds show the Blue Devils as a +200 favorite to win the NCAA title followed by Gonzaga and Virginia both at +700.