Most around college basketball know at this point that the Atlantic Coast Conference is ridiculously weak this season. It currently looks like anywhere from about 4 to 7 teams will make the NCAA Tournament out of the ACC.
It's also no secret that Duke should absolutely run through the rest of the ACC during conference play. The Blue Devils are so far and away the best team in the conference it looks realistic they can go undefeated in ACC play.
With that, Duke therefore has few opportunities to boost its resume further and it also makes the program vulnerable to getting picked off by bad teams and suffering Quad 2 to 4 losses.
Let's see how many real resume-boosting opportunities the Blue Devils have left.
First, let's go over the quadrants. There are four. Quadrant 1 wins or losses is the best to have and Quadrant 4 wins or losses are the worst. Here are the qualifications for a quadrant game.
Quad 1: home game against a team ranked between 1-30 in the NET rankings, neutral game against a team ranked 1-50 in the NET, or road game against team ranked 1-75 in the NET
Quad 2: home game against a team ranked between 31-75 in the NET, neutral game against a team ranked 51-100 in the NET, or road game against team ranked 76-135 in the NET
Quad 3: home game against a team ranked between 76-160 in the NET, neutral game against a team ranked 101-200 in the NET, or road game against team ranked 135-240 in the NET
Quad 4: home game against a team ranked between 161-353 in the NET, neutral game against a team ranked 201-353 in the NET, or road game against team ranked 241-353 in the NET
So Quad 1 games are the most important, and Duke has given itself a great resume in Quad 1 with a 3-2 record, tied for the most Quad 1 wins of any program in college basketball this season.
Aside from that, Duke is 0-0 in Quad 2 and a combined 7-0 in Quad's 3 and 4.
Duke having 3 Quad 1 wins, tied for the most in the country, and no losses outside of Quad 1, is practically as good as a resume can get.
But, as other top teams in the country that play in the SEC or Big 12 have countless Quad 1 opportunities coming to continue to boost their body of work before the NCAA Tournament, Duke doesn't have that luxury.
Through the entire rest of the regular season, just 5 of Duke's remaining 19 games will be against Quadrant 1 opponents ( @ SMU, vs. Pittsburgh, @ Clemson, neutral site against Illinois, @ North Carolina).
With just three of the team's remaining games being against Quadrant 2 opponents, that means over half of Duke's remaining games will be against opponents in the bottom two quadrants. Yikes.
To put that in perspective, Auburn out of the SEC will play a Quadrant 1 opponent 13 times in its final 19 games of the season.
Again, there's pros and cons here for Duke. The main pro is the Blue Devils control their own destiny. Win games like they should, and a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament is extremely likely. The con is just how easy the schedule is. Duke will be in position to lose a game in the bottom 2 quadrants over half the time.
The Blue Devils have done enough in the non-con to show they deserve a high seed, and it looks crucial that Jon Scheyer scheduled such a difficult non-con slate in hindsight.
Duke is in a Q4 situation next against 5-7 Virginia Tech on December 31st (4:30pm ET, ACC Network), but then follow that up with two straight Q1 games against SMU and Pittsburgh back-to-back.
The Blue Devils are in a really interesting position with just how good its been but with such a weak conference slate looming. Duke controls its destiny and will need to rake in every Q1 opportunity it can and keep blemishes off the schedule.