The Duke Blue Devils (24-3, 15-1 ACC) dismantled the Illinois Fighting Illini (17-11, 9-8 Big 10) by 43 points at Madison Square Garden last night 110-67.
The win gave the Blue Devils their largest margin of victory in a regular season neutral site game since the 1953-54 season. It's also the program's biggest win ever at Madison Square Garden in 73 games played at the arena.
Duke has been widely regarded as a likely #1-seed in this year's NCAA Tournament with its dominance in the ACC all season, but last night's win gives the Blue Devils a real case to take over the #1 overall seed position from the current #1-ranked Auburn Tigers.
Auburn has been the leader of the SEC this season in a year where the SEC might be the best single-season conference of all time. It would be incredibly difficult for any program to take over that spot from the Tigers if the group wins the SEC Tournament. But with what the Blue Devils did last night, it seems they have to be taken seriously for that position.
"This was just a total domination," ACC Network analyst Joel Berry II said after the Blue Devils' victory. "It became a glorified practice."
All five starters for Duke finished in double figure scoring with Isaiah Evans leading the way off the bench with a game-high 17 points on 5-of-8 shooting from the field. The Blue Devils as a team shot 55.6% from the field and 52.2% from three point range while holding the Illini to 37.7% shooting from the field and just 2-of-26 (7.7%) shooting from beyond the arc.
Duke has now won 20 of its last 21 games and is now 6-3 in Quadrant 1 and 18-0 across the other three quadrants. The team holds wins over Auburn, Arizona, and Illinois and all of its losses fall in Quad 1. Duke fell on neutral sites to Kentucky and Kansas and dropped one conference game on the road to Clemson a few weeks ago.
No other squads outside of Duke and Auburn have displayed the sheer amount of dominance these two programs have. What could really bring Duke above Auburn in the conversation for the tournament's #1 overall seed is the fact that Duke is one of two teams that have taken down the Tigers this season.
Duke beat Auburn at Cameron Indoor 84-78 in December.
If the Blue Devils finish out the regular season undefeated and go onto win the ACC Tournament with no issues, it would become a very difficult conversation between which of Duke or Auburn should be the top seed in the big dance.
The final four regular season games for Duke include one at Miami (6-21, 2-14 ACC), versus Florida State (16-11, 7-9 ACC), versus Wake Forest (19-8, 11-5 ACC), and at North Carolina (17-11, 10-6 ACC).
The way Duke absolutely ran a solid Illinois team out of the arena in what was supposed to be a sort of "Sweet 16 preview" type of matchup should really open the eyes of the committee that the Blue Devils might need to overtake Auburn for that top seed spot, especially since Duke beat Auburn in the lone head-to-head matchup between the schools this season.