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The voters didn't judge Duke too harshly for what happened in Miami.
After losing by 27 at Miami and beating Maryland by 20 at home, Duke was ranked No. 5 in the latest AP poll. Michigan is the new No. 1 team, followed by Kansas, Indiana and Florida. The Blue Devils have been ranked in the top 10 of the AP Poll for 106 straight weeks, dating back to Nov. 2007. The record is 155 weeks by UCLA from 1966-1976.
Duke (17-2, 4-2 in the ACC) was ranked anywhere between No. 3 and No. 13 on the 65 AP ballots. Four voters had the Blue Devils at No. 3—Kevin Dunleavy of the The Washington (Va.) Examiner, Roger Clarkson of the The Athens (Ga.) Banner-Herald, Ryan Thorburn of the Daily (Col.) Camera and Ryan Wood of the Opelika-Auburn (Ala.) News.
Two voters—Tom Keegan of the Lawrence (Kan.) Journal World and Seth Davis of Sports Illustrated—had Duke out of the top 10. Keegan had them at No. 11 and Davis at No. 13.
"Have to rank Duke according to who they are now," Davis tweeted last night . "That's without Ryan Kelly, and it's obviously not nearly as good."
Miami moved up from No. 25 to No. 14, the Hurricane's highest ranking since 2002. N.C. State only fell one spot to No. 19 after losing at Wake Forest and then beating North Carolina Saturday (and beat the Tar Heels at their own game, I might add ).
Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski was asked on the ACC Coaches Teleconference if he had ever had a week in which his team had a 47-point swing between two games.
"Yeah, I don't keep track of that," he said.
The answer is yes, by the way, and then some. On Jan. 2, 1984, Duke lost by 38 at No. 14 Louisville, the worst regular season loss of the Krzyzewski era. Four days later, the Blue Devils beat Rutgers 80-61, making it a 57-point swing from one game to the next.
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