Bracketology 2020: Duke, Texas Tech and Utah State among biggest losers
Duke (23-6, 13-5 ACC)
The Blue Devils already squandered a chance to slide into a #1 seed last week, when a midweek loss to NC State preceded concurrent losses by Baylor, Gonzaga, and San Diego that may have otherwise opened the door for Duke. But after two more losses over the past seven days, Coach K now has to worry whether his team will hold on for a protected seed.
To be fair to Duke, neither loss is necessarily all that bad. Despite their best efforts to stave off an upset bid from Wake Forest on the road, the Blue Devils fell in double overtime to the Demon Deacons in Winston-Salem. Though Danny Manning’s team has hit the skids within the realms of the ACC, they are a Top 100 team in the NET. The loss, therefore, qualifies as a Quadrant 2 game for Duke’s purposes.
On Saturday, they had a chance to gain back some good favor in another road test, this time against Virginia. With recent losses to NC State and Wake Forest, a win over the surging Cavaliers could have helped Duke stamp down their feet and stop their tumble-down the seed lines.
Instead, Virginia walked away with yet another win, and Duke took yet another shot on the chin. Interestingly, the Blue Devils’ recent travails have not cost them in one of the most important metrics being used to sort teams for the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee. Eli Boettger at Heat Check CBB pointed out that Duke’s NET ranking has remained unchanged at #6 for the past few weeks, even in view of their losses to lesser competition.
But the question remains how long Duke can rely on analytics to prop up their profile before the committee decides they’ve taken too many losses. At the moment, they are likely to fall somewhere between #10 and #14 in the seed list, which would land them on either the three- or four-line in two weeks’ time. A strong performance in the ACC Tournament could see them climb all the way up to a two-seed.
However, at this point, it seems that another rocky week has closed the door on Duke’s dreams of grabbing a #1 seed, once a for all.