Duke basketball stays second in the ESPN Basketball Power Index despite Miami blowout

The Duke Blue Devils won by 35 points on Tuesday, but it wasn’t enough to give them the top spot in the ESPN Basketball Power Index.

The Duke Blue Devils certainly looked like the best team in the country on Tuesday night, hanging 50 points on the Miami Hurricanes before halftime en route to a 35-point victory, but the ESPN Basketball Power Index holds one other team in slightly higher.

As of Wednesday morning, the Blue Devils sit second behind the Houston Cougars in ESPN’s metrics.

The Cougars, a top-2 seed in three of the last four NCAA Tournaments, lost three of their first seven games, but they’ve rattled off eight in a row to sit 12-3 for the season. Two of Houston’s three losses came in overtime, and it dominates the rest of the country with a 14.3 defensive index. The Tennessee Volunteers are second in that category by ESPN’s tracking, but the gap between them and the Cougars is the same as the gap between them and Illinois at No. 11.

The Blue Devils have held nine of their last 11 opponents to 65 points or fewer, and they’ve scored at least 82 in five of their last six. The totality puts Duke second on ESPN’s offensive leaderboard and fourth on defense, the only team in the top seven in both categories.

Duke’s next opponent, the Boston College Eagles, rank last among ACC teams at No. 151.