The Duke basketball program suffered its first loss of the 2025-26 season in Madison Square Garden on Saturday night, surrendering a 17-point lead en route to an 82-81 loss to No. 15 Texas Tech. Now 11-1 on the season, Jon Scheyer's club still boasts one of the best resumes in the sport, but it was expected they would see at least a slight dip in their Associated Press Poll ranking following the defeat. On the other hand, the Red Raiders climbed a few spots, as expected, following their best victory of the young campaign.
The Atlantic Coast Conference still sits with four teams ranked in the AP Poll, with a few other squads receiving votes. However, the top two squads out of the conference both took respectable dips in the rankings following losses. The relevance of the AP Poll at this point of the season only means so much, but you'd still like to see the ACC represented well at the very top.
ACC remains with four teams ranked in latest AP Poll, Duke and Louisville both fall in Top 25 rankings
Duke fell three spots in the rankings from No. 3 to No. 6, behind Arizona, Michigan, Iowa State, UConn, and Purdue, in that order. The Blue Devils and the Boilermakers could've been swapped with one another, considering Purdue's lone loss is a blowout 81-58 loss at home to Iowa State, but the committee favored the loss over a top-five team.
Aside from the Blue Devils, Louisville, the ACC's next best team, also suffered a major dip in the rankings following an 83-62 road loss to No. 19 Tennessee on December 16th. The Cardinals fell from No. 11 to No. 16 and now sit at 10-2 on the season, with both of their losses coming against ranked opponents.
North Carolina stayed put at No. 12 in the poll, and Virginia moved up two spots to No. 21 following an 80-72 win over Maryland.
California, Clemson, Miami, and NC State all received votes.
The Blue Devils now take a long break before conference play begins, as they will host Georgia Tech next on December 31st.