Duke basketball (21-3, 13-1 ACC) sits as the #3 ranked team in this week's Associated Press Poll behind #1 Auburn and #2 Alabama. The Blue Devils have been widely projected as a 1-seed in the 2025 NCAA Tournament for months now, and the Blue Devils have given any network few reasons to put them at any position lower.
The Blue Devils are 5-3 in Quadrant 1 with wins over Auburn and Arizona. The program has just one unranked loss on the season to Clemson this past Saturday, as the other two losses came on neutral courts against Kansas and Kentucky early on in the season.
So, with the Blue Devils' 16-game win streak snapped by Clemson last Saturday, let's take a look at different networks' 'bracketology' and see if Duke can be found on the 1-seed line each time.
ESPN
1-seeds: Duke, Auburn, Alabama, Tennessee
2-seeds: Houston, Purdue, Texas A&M, Florida
3-seeds: Michigan State, Iowa State, Arizona, Texas Tech
Joe Lunardi's Bracketology from ESPN still kept Duke on the 1-line after the loss along with three SEC teams. Lunardi projects four ACC teams to make the big dance: Duke, Clemson (7-seed), Louisville (7-seed), and Wake Forest (Last Four In). This bracket forecast was last updated on February 11th at 9:00am ET.
CBS
1-seeds: Duke, Auburn, Alabama, Tennessee
2-seeds: Houston, Purdue, Texas A&M, Florida
3-seeds: Iowa State, Arizona, Michigan State, Wisconsin
Jerry Palm of CBS has the same teams on the 1-line as Lunardi at ESPN, and it looks like this tournament seeding will be dominated by the SEC, as both Palm and Lunardi have five SEC teams among the top three seeds. Palm projects three other ACC teams as well: Clemson (7-seed), Louisville (7-seed), and Wake Forest (10-seed). Palm last updated his projections on February 10th at 11:48am ET.
FOX Sports
1-seeds: Duke, Auburn, Alabama, Tennessee
2-seeds: Houston, Purdue, Texas A&M, Florida
3-seeds: St. John's, Michigan State, Kentucky, Iowa State
Mike Decourcy of FOX Sports again has the same 1 and 2 seed lines, but differs at the next seed down putting St. John's out of the Big East on the 3 line along with Kentucky. Decourcy has five squads in the dance out of the ACC: Duke, Louisville (5-seed), Clemson (7-seed), Wake Forest (11-seed), SMU (Last Four In). This forecast was last updated on February 11th at 4:00pm ET.
On3
1-seeds: Duke, Auburn, Alabama, Florida
2-seeds: Iowa State, Houston, Tennessee, Purdue
3-seeds: Arizona, Kansas, Kentucky, Texas A&M
James Fletcher III of On3 has the 1-seeds slightly different than the other networks. Duke is still up there, but Florida jumps Tennessee in this forecast and leaves the Vols as a 2. Fletcher also throws Kansas as a 3, the highest this Jayhawks team has been seeded yet. On3 projects Duke, Clemson (7-seed), Louisville (7-seed), and SMU (Last Four In) to make the tournament. This was updated about 8 hours ago.
It seems the Blue Devils are looked at as one of the top four teams in NCAA Tournament bracket projections across the board, and luckily the loss at Clemson counted as a Q1 loss to keep the blemishes on the resume minimal.
Duke is up next at home against Stanford (16-8, 8-6 ACC) on Saturday (4:00pm ET, ABC).