Early Wendesday morning, the Duke basketball squad climbed two notches to No. 5 in the NCAA NET Rankings, which the selection committee uses to help determine at-large bids and seeding for March Madness. That bump arrived hours after the Blue Devils, No. 6 in this week’s AP Top 25 Poll, secured an 84-73 road win over the No. 20-ranked Louisville Cardinals in the KFC Yum! Center on Tuesday night.
Then on Thursday morning, Duke (14-1, 3-0 ACC) rose another spot to No. 4, where it remained in the NET (updated daily) on Friday morning.
Although not yet back to being widely viewed as one of the four projected No. 1 seeds for the NCAA Tournament, the Blue Devils, who fell out of the top five following its 82-81 loss to the Texas Tech Red Raiders (now No. 14 in the AP Poll) in Madison Square Garden back on Dec. 20, are at least back in that position in terms of how they stack up in the NET. They sit below three undefeated teams in the No. 1 Michigan Wolverines, No. 2 Arizona Wildcats, and No. 3 Iowa State Cyclones.
ACC Boasts Most in NET’s Top 70
Over two-thirds of the 18-deep ACC sits among the top 70 in the latest NCAA NET Rankings. Not only does the ACC’s 13 such representatives mark the most from any conference, but the Syracuse Orange (currently No. 78) is just eight spots back of bumping that leading count to 14.
Four ACC squads appear alongside fourth-year head coach Jon Scheyer’s Blue Devils in the NET’s top 30: the Louisville Cardinals (11-4, 1-2 ACC) at No. 15, Virginia Cavaliers (13-2, 2-1 ACC) at No. 19, UNC Tar Heels (13-2, 1-1 ACC) at No. 22, and SMU Mustangs (12-3, 1-1 ACC) at No. 27.
Duke next hosts SMU in Cameron Indoor Stadium at 2 p.m. ET (ESPN) before hitting the road again to face the unranked Cal Golden Bears (No. 65 NET) at 11 p.m. ET Wednesday (ACC Network) and the unranked Stanford Cardinal (No. 70 NET) on Saturday, Jan. 17, at 6 p.m. ET (ACC Network).
