Duke’s Goal Should Now Be Number One Seed In NCAA Tournament

Duke’s basketball team is currently in third place in the ACC two games behind Virginia. There is still a chance Duke can claim the conferences regular season championship, but barring an unforeseen collapse by Virginia, Duke will have to settle for somewhere likely between second and sixth. Even if Duke doesn’t win the regular season ACC title there is still a lot to play for in the seven remaining regular season games.

First and foremost Duke has a legitimate shot at a number one seed in the NCAA tournament. If the field was seeded today it would seem as though Duke would be a number one seed due to their rather impressive resume. They have three very impressive road wins, over Wisconsin, Virginia, and Louisville (all top ten teams) and only three losses, none of which are of the bad loss variety.

Duke’s upcoming schedule features four very tough games among the seven remaining. They have to play both Syracuse and North Carolina twice each. Syracuse is not eligible for postseason play this year but they still will not make it easy for the Blue Devils in either matchup. North Carolina has a very good team this year as well, and with the rivalry between Duke and UNC you know both of those games are going to be hotly contested.

If Duke is going to get a number one seed, they might have to win all of their remaining regular season games, and that, as I mentioned before, is no easy task. If Duke were to win the remainder of their regular season games they likely wouldn’t have to worry about an early loss in the ACC tournament. But if they were to lose to either Syracuse, UNC or both it would likely take an ACC tournament championship for them to even be considered for a number one seed.

People might ask if there is that big of a difference between a number one seed and a number two seed in the big tournament, but Duke fans know all too well the huge difference. A number one seed has never lost in the first round of the tournament, but number two seeds have lost several times, one of them being Duke a couple of years ago against Lehigh.

This Duke team may not be as vulnerable as that team was, but Duke has been on the short end of some huge upsets in the first round of the NCAA tournament and it would behoove them to get as close to a guaranteed victory in the first round as possible.

This Duke team is different than the one that lost to Lehigh, and last years team with Jabari Parker that lost to Mercer in the first round. With Wooden Award front runner Jahlil Okafor, it is highly unlikely a 15 or 14 seed would have anyone that could guard him. Even with that luxury though, Duke fans would probably feel a lot more comfortable as a number one seed and rightfully so.

Mike Krzyzewski will tell the media that his goal is still to be regular season ACC champs, and even though Duke has the tiebreaker with Virginia, they are two games back and have a much tougher schedule. The ACC regular season title is nothing more than a pipe dream for the Blue Devils right now, and thats okay because the main goal is a National Championship. Now Duke should focus on doing everything in their power to get a number one seed so that goal is as attainable as possible, and if an ACC title happens to come with it then thats icing on the cake.