Duke ended Auburn’s eight-week stay at No. 1 in the AP Top 25 men’s college basketball poll on Monday, while the Tigers dropped to third behind Houston as all three programs began preparing for their conference tournaments.
The Blue Devils took advantage of back-to-back losses by Auburn to ascend to the top spot for the first time since November 2021, when Duke spent a week there in Hall of Fame coach Mike Krzyzewski’s farewell season. The Blue Devils received 52 of 61 votes from the national media panel, while the Cougars picked up five and the Tigers held onto the other four.
“Just my luck to be No. 1 going into the postseason when it really doesn’t matter,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said with a laugh. “We haven’t talked about it one time. We have talked about being No. 1 when this thing is all said and done.”
The Blue Devils, who will be the No. 1 seed in the ACC Tournament when they begin play in Thursday’s quarterfinals, beat Wake Forest in a rout last week before topping rival North Carolina on Saturday in Chapel Hill.
The Cougars, the top seed in the Big 12 Tournament, climbed to their highest ranking of the season. Auburn fell three spots but will still be the No. 1 seed in the SEC Tournament, despite its close losses to then-No. 23 Texas A&M and then-No. 7 Alabama.
“Those are two teams capable of getting to the Final Four,” Tigers coach Bruce Pearl said after watching the Crimson Tide’s Mark Sears hit a buzzer-beater for a 93-91 overtime win in Auburn’s home finale Saturday.
Florida, which beat Alabama earlier in the week, moved up one spot to fourth while the Crimson Tide climbed two spots to fifth in Monday’s poll. St. John’s remained sixth after its overtime win over then-No. 20 Marquette on Saturday. Michigan State was seventh, Tennessee dropped four spots to eighth, Texas Tech was ninth and Clemson rounded out the top 10.
While some conferences are already crowning champions and awarding NCAA Tournament berths, the ACC and Big 12 are among the power leagues that begin play Tuesday. The Big Ten and SEC tournaments open on Wednesday.
“My standards are probably a little bit different. I think there’s areas we need to continue to get better in,” said Houston coach Kelvin Sampson, whose team rolls into the Big 12 quarterfinals on Thursday riding a 10-game winning streak.
“I’m never going to say we’re playing our best ball because I prefer to think our best ball’s ahead of us,” Sampson said, “so we’ve just got to continue to work. That’s the bottom line. Stay humble and just keep working.”
In and out
Oregon, the eighth seed in the Big Ten Tournament, returned to the poll at No. 23 while Illinois — the seventh seed — is back in at No. 24. Their spots came at the expense of Arizona, which lost at Kansas, and Mississippi State, which did not receive a single vote after losing close games to Texas and Arkansas last week.
Rising and falling
Texas A&M made the biggest move in the poll, climbing eight spots to No. 14 after wins over then-No. 1 Auburn and LSU. BYU jumped six spots to No. 17 after a double-overtime win over then-No. 10 Iowa State and a victory over Utah.
Wisconsin and Missouri tumbled six spots apiece this week. The Badgers fell to No. 18 after losing to Penn State on Saturday while the Tigers fell to No. 21 after losing to Oklahoma and then-No. 19 Kentucky.
Conference watch
The SEC and Big Ten led the way with seven teams apiece in the Top 25, though the SEC had three of the top 5 and six in the top 15, while the Big Ten had one in the top 10. The Big 12 had four ranked teams, the ACC three, the Big East two and the American Athletic and West Coast conferences one each.
Story by Dave Skretta.
