Saturday wasn’t the biggest or best or wildest day of the season. Not even close. But Auburn won again. And Duke looked awesome again. So it ended up being a day to highlight the sport’s two best teams led by the sport’s two best players — namely Auburn’s Johni Broome and Duke’s Cooper Flagg.
Final score: Auburn 82, Georgia 70.
Final score: Duke 110, Illinois 67.
Auburn’s 17th double-digit victory of the season — featuring 31 points and 14 rebounds from Broome — improved the Tigers to 19-2 in the first two quadrants, including 14-2 in Q1. That’s the best body of work in the sport by a wide margin. But Duke’s resume is now second, I think. The Blue Devils are 24-3 overall, 11-3 in the first two quadrants and 6-3 in Q1 after their 43-point beatdown of Illinois — featuring 16 points, seven rebounds and five assists from Flagg — that doubled as the Illini’s worst defeat in program history.
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It’s crazy what Duke did to Brad Underwood’s team inside Madison Square Garden — and if you want to call the Blue Devils the sport’s “best” team, there is some data to support the claim. But, that acknowledged, Bruce Pearl’s Tigers would still be the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament if it started today, and by like a million miles, regardless of what the predictive metrics suggest.
So Auburn remains No. 1 in Sunday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings for the 47th straight day — but Duke is now No. 2, which pushed Florida down one spot to No. 3, no fault of its own.
Why Duke over Florida?
Again, the Blue Devils are now 6-3 in Q1 with four victories over teams ranked in the top 25 of the NET while Florida is 5-3 in Q1 with just two victories over teams ranked in the top 25 of the NET. I’m splitting hairs, admittedly. But if I were seeding the NCAA Tournament this morning, my No. 1 seeds would be Auburn, Duke, Florida and Alabama, in that order. The Top 25 And 1 is merely a reflection of that.
Top 25 And 1 rankings
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