Duke ended his eight-week stay for Auburn on Monday with the Associated Press Top 25 Men’s College Basketball Poll, but the Tigers fell to Houston’s third place as all three programs began preparing for the conference tournament.
The Blue Devils took advantage of consecutive losses from Auburn to top spot for the first time since November 2021 when Duke spent a week with the Hall of Fame coaching. The Blue Devils won 52 of the 61 votes from the National Media Panel, the Cougars won five, and the Tigers hugged the other four.
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“It’s my luck to be number one in the postseason when that really doesn’t matter,” Duke coach John Shayer said with a laugh. “We’ve never spoken about it. We talked about how this was all said and when it was finished, it was number one.”
The Blue Devils, who will be number one in the ACC tournament when they began playing in Thursday’s quarterfinals, defeated Wake Forest in last week’s loss and topped their rival North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The top seed of the Big 12 tournament, the Cougars have climbed to the highest ranking of the season. Auburn defeated three spots, but despite his close loss to NO at the time, he was the number one seed in the SEC tournament. 23 Texas A&M and what happened. 7 Alabama.
Team Record1. Duke (52) 28-32. Houston (5) 27-43. Auburn (4) 27-44. Florida27-45. Alabama24-76. St. John’s 27-47. Michigan State 26-58. Tennessee 25-69. Texas Tech24-710. Clemson 26-511. Maryland 24-712. Iowa State 23-813. 25-614 Louisville. Texas A&M22-915. Kentucky 21-1016. Memphis26-517. BYU23-818. Wisconsin 23-819. St. Mary’s 27-420. Purdue21-1021. Missouri 21-1022. MICHIGAN22-923. oregon23-824. Illinois20-1125. Marquette22-9
“These are two teams that can reach the Final Four,” Auburn manager Bruce Pal said he saw Crimson Tide’s Mark Sears hit a buzzer beater on Saturday with a 93-91 overtime victory in Auburn’s home finale.
Florida, who defeated Alabama at the beginning of the week, moved one place to fourth, and the Crimson Tide rose to second in Monday’s poll. St. John’s remained sixth after working overtime with No at the time. Saturday 20 Marquette. Michigan finished seventh, Tennessee placed eighth for four spots, Texas Tech placed ninth, and Clemson finished in the top 10.
Although some meetings have already won champions and awarded the NCAA Tournament Bertier, the ACC and Big 12 are one of the power leagues that will begin playing on Tuesday. The Big Ten and Second Tournament is open on Wednesdays.
“My standards are probably a little different. I think there are areas where we need to continue to improve,” said Houston coach Kelvin Sampson.
“We don’t mean to say that we play the best ball because we like to think that the best ball is in front of us,” Sampson said.
Move; I’ll move
Oregon, the eighth seed in the Big Ten Tournament, returned to the poll at No. 23, with Illinois – the seventh seed – back in No. 24.
Who is rising? Who’s falling?
Texas A&M made the biggest move in the poll, moving 8th to 14th after a victory at the time. 1 Auburn and LSU. BYU jumped six spots to 17th place after winning a no-double overtime at the time. 10 Victory over Iowa and Utah.
Wisconsin and Missouri each fell six spots this week. The Badgers fell to No. 18 after losing to Pennsylvania on Saturday, but the Tigers fell to No. 21 after losing to Oklahoma and then no. 19 Kentucky.
Conference Watch
The SEC and the Big Ten led with seven top 25 teams, but the SEC had three of the top 5 and six of the top 15, and the Big Ten had one in the top 10. The Big 12 had four ranked teams, ACC 3, Big East 2 and the American Athletic and West Coast Conference.
