After Duke won its fifth straight game on Wednesday night, a near-30-point blowout over Miami on the road, ESPN’s Basketball Power Index thinks the Blue Devils are the best team in the ACC.
The Blue Devils moved up two spots to 10th in the site’s rankings, jumping two spots ahead of the North Carolina Tar Heels to assume the highest rank of any team in the conference.
Duke has won 16 of its last 18 games now and eight of its past nine, while the Tar Heels have lost three of their past six games.
The strength of Duke’s team has always been its offense, and the Blue Devils rank seventh in the nation in the site’s offensive power index. The defense has lagged behind a little but still moved up to 21st in the site’s defensive rankings after a few solid showings in a row.
ESPN’s modeling has the Blue Devils projected to win 24.9 games and 15.9 games in conference play. Once you factor in Duke’s current record of 21-5 and 12-3 in the ACC with five games left, the site is projecting almost an exact 4-1 finish to the regular season.
North Carolina’s projections are 23.7 wins and 15.7 ACC wins, so the two are truly neck-and-neck down the final straight.
The only other ACC teams in the top 35 are Wake Forest (21st) and Clemson (22nd).