The Duke Basketball team fell to No. 2 in the latest Associated Press Top-25 Poll after splitting its two games this week.
The Blue Devils headed into the week with major aspirations and those aspirations looked to be in trouble just six minutes into Monday’s game against Syracuse.
It was announced minutes before tipoff that Cam Reddish would not play against the Orange due to an illness and six minutes into the game, Tre Jones went down with a shoulder injury that looked very serious.
More from Ball Durham
- Duke basketball: The architect behind digital dominance
- Duke basketball prioritizing frontcourt prospects in 2025
- Duke basketball: Unmasking the hate for the Blue Devils
- Duke basketball: Countdown to Craziness lands another huge visitor
- Duke basketball fills final open scholarship
The Blue Devils ended up losing to the Syracuse Orange in overtime, but would respond on Saturday with a win over then No. 4 Virginia, without the services of Tre Jones, although Reddish did return to the lineup.
However, the voters at the Associated Press still felt the need to drop the Blue Devils one spot in the Top-25 Poll because of the loss to Syracuse.
Duke currently rests as the No. 2 team in the nation, while the Tennessee Volunteers have now claimed the No. 1 spot.
The Volunteers received 48 first place votes, while the Blue Devils received 11. Despite the loss to Duke, Virginia moved up a spot to No. 3 and were credited with three first place votes.
The rest of the Top-6 is the Gonzaga Bulldogs, the Michigan Wolverines, who lost its first game of the season on Saturday to the Wisconsin Badgers, and the Michigan State Spartans, who received two first place votes.
Along side Duke and Virginia the other ACC teams that are ranked are the No. 10 Virginia Tech Hokies, the No. 11 North Carolina Tar Heels, No. 21 North Carolina State Wolfpack, and No. 23 Louisville Cardinals.
The Hokies and Tar Heels face each other on Monday night from the Dean Dome at 7:00 pm ET on ESPN.
As far as other ACC team in the Top-25 Poll, the Florida State Seminoles dropped out of the rankings after moving from No. 13 to No. 11 last week after losing to the Blue Devils, but lost on the road against Pittsburgh and Boston College this week.
The Seminoles are the “No. 26” team, receiving 139 total votes.
The Syracuse Orange were the only other team from the ACC to receive votes in this weeks poll, but the Orange were only able to manage 13 votes.
As for the Duke Blue Devils this week, the team will hit the road to face a friend in the Pittsburgh Panthers and new Head Coach Jeff Capel on Tuesday night before returning home to take on the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets on Saturday afternoon.