The Duke Blue Devils (15-2, 7-0 ACC) and the Auburn Tigers (16-1, 4-0 SEC) are typically the two teams in the discussion for the best team in college basketball with possibly the addition of the Iowa State Cyclones (14-1, 4-0 Big 12). The three programs are ranked #3, #1, and #2 in the Associated Press Poll respectively.
But if the NCAA Tournament bracket was released today, it would likely be either Duke or Auburn that would own the #1 overall seed in the big dance. So, who would it be today?
Both the Blue Devils and Tigers are coming off of monstrous wins on Tuesday night. Duke beat Miami (4-13, 0-6 ACC) at home 89-54 and Auburn took down #15 Mississippi State (14-3, 2-2 SEC) 88-66 on their home floor as well.
Auburn also got the job done without their best player and National Player of the Year candidate Johni Broome, who is out with a severe left ankle sprain he sustained in the team's win over South Carolina last Saturday.
Auburn and Duke are the #1 and #2 teams at KenPom respectively, but ratings like that don't really matter nor do ranks in the AP Poll. The selection committee relies almost entirely on a team's resume and complete body of work when seeding.
By "complete body of work," it essentially means how many big wins does a team have, how many bad losses does a team have, and how does a team perform against the best competition.
This is where "quadrant" wins come in. Quadrant 1 wins are the best wins to have, and Quadrant 4 losses are the worst to have, but teams fighting for the #1 overall seed rarely have any losses outside of Quadrant 2 or even Quadrant 1.
Read here to see what qualifies as a Quadrant 1-4 game
Auburn is currently 9-1 in Quadrant 1 with its only loss coming to none other than Duke at Cameron, and is 7-0 in the other three quadrants. The Tigers also have six wins over ranked opponents with only two of it's Q1 wins coming at home.
On the other hand, Duke is 5-2 in Quad 1 with losses to #9 Kansas and #8 Kentucky, both on neutral courts, and is 10-0 in the other three quadrants. The Blue Devils boast three wins over ranked opponents.
If the bracket were to be released today, the top seed would likely go to the Tigers as they have more Q1 wins along with less losses.
Granted, that doesn't really matter with over two months to go in the regular season, but it will be an interesting duel between the two programs for the rest of the season due to the drastic difference in competition.
Duke plays in the ACC which has been an all-around bad conference this year, and Auburn plays in the SEC which is easily the best conference in college basketball and is potentially having one of the best single seasons a conference has ever had.
In the SEC/ACC Challenge earlier this season, the SEC cruised to a victory finishing the event with a 14-2 record. The SEC also won 88.9% of its non-conference games and currently has 11 teams projected in the NCAA Tournament in Joe Lunardi's Bracketology to the ACC's 5.
And in terms of Quad 1 or 2 opportunities for the remainder of the season, the Tigers demolish the Blue Devils in that regard.
Of Auburn's 14 remaining regular season games, 12 of them are Q1 games and the other two are Q2.
In a weak ACC, Duke only has three Q1 opportunities for the rest of their remaining 14 games and eight of those games are Q3, which don't boost Duke's resume in any way.
However, the vast difference in strength of schedules could go in different ways.
If Auburn continues to dominate the SEC like it's been doing and go on to win the SEC regular season title and/or the SEC Tournament, it would be virtually impossible to not award the Tigers the #1 overall seed. The best team out of the best conference.
But, that also means more opportunities for losses which will likely come for the Tigers. Granted, those losses will look a lot better than they probably would for Duke since they would be a Q1 or Q2 loss.
But if Duke continues to demolish the ACC like it's done so far, winning its seven conference games by an average of 22.7 points, and Auburn suffers a few losses in-conference, that opens the door for the Blue Devils to take the top seed.
This also puts the Blue Devils walking a fine line for the remainder of conference play with so many opportunities for bad losses, given many of them are in Q3 and they only have three more opportunities all season to earn a Q1 victory.
It will be interesting to follow the two programs for the remainder of the regular season or if another club comes in to potentially take the top seed, but right now it seems Auburn edges Duke by a slight edge.
Up next for the Blue Devils is a road game against Boston College (9-8, 1-5 ACC) on January 18th (8:00pm ET, ESPN) and for Auburn it's a road test against #23 Georgia (14-2, 2-1 SEC) on the 18th as well (1:00pm ET, SEC Network).