The Duke Blue Devils (22-3, 14-1 ACC) stayed put as the #3 team in this week's Associated Press Poll, the program's same ranking as last week. There was a chance that the Blue Devils would jump to the #2 spot after previous #2 Alabama fell to Auburn this weekend, but Florida overtook the #2 spot after taking down Mississippi State on the road and South Carolina at home this week.
This week's AP Top 10:
1. Auburn
2. Florida
3. Duke
4. Alabama
5. Houston
6. Tennessee
7. Texas A&M
8. Iowa State
9. Texas Tech
10. St. John's
Five of the top ten teams hail from the SEC, three from the Big 12, one from the ACC, and one from the Big East.
The Blue Devils bounced back with two dominant home victories this week after suffering their first conference and road loss of the season at Clemson last Saturday. Duke took down California (12-14, 5-10 ACC) 78-57 and Stanford (16-10, 8-7 ACC) 106-70.
Next up for Duke is a road test against Virginia (13-12, 6-8 ACC) tonight at 8:00pm ET on ESPN.
This is Duke's sixth straight week inside the top three of the AP Poll. The program has remained in the top ten of the poll for the last twelve weeks.
Duke has been the lone representative of ranked ACC teams for the majority of the season, but in this week's poll the conference has the most ranked teams it's had in a single poll all season long.
Clemson (21-5, 13-2 ACC) came in at #18 and Louisville (20-6, 13-2 ACC) came in at #25.
Both the Tigers and Cardinals sit one game back of the Blue Devils for first place in the ACC. Clemson beat Duke 77-71 at home last Saturday but the Blue Devils beat Louisville 76-65 at the KFC Yum! Center back in December. Duke will not see either of these clubs for the remainder of the regular season.
It seems like a three-team race for ACC regular season title between the Blue Devils, Cardinals, and Tigers at this point of the regular season. Wake Forest and SMU continue to lurk behind a bit, sitting three and three and a half games back from Duke respectively in the conference.
Joe Lunardi's latest Bracketology update projects just three ACC teams to make the NCAA Tournament: Duke as a 1-seed along with both Louisville and Clemson as 7-seeds.