When the NCAA Tournament seeds are announced in just over a month, Duke is not going to be a No. 1 seed. Neither is Kentucky.
That’s bad news for whomever is the No. 1 in their regions.
The Blue Devils and Big Blue Nation were No. 1 and 2 in the preseason, but neither has quite lived up to expectations.
Kentucky’s immensely talented freshmen are still just freshmen, and Duke has had a casserole of injuries and controversy in addition to its own freshman growing pains.
In Jerry Palm’s current Bracketology on CBS, the Wildcats are a No. 4 seed, while Duke is a No. 5.
Neither deserves better than that as of now. But other than defending champion Villanova, which has been outstanding more often than not, there aren’t many teams that seem like locks to get out of the first weekend of the tournament.
Even undefeated No. 1 Gonzaga hasn’t played an elite caliber team since before New Year’s. The tournament will be a much tougher test.
The top 10 of The Associated Press poll has been in upheaval all week. There are plenty of good teams and even more pretty good ones, but there aren’t many great teams, at least not yet.
Duke and Kentucky still have the talent to be great.
Even if Harry Giles continues to be a shell of the super star people predicted he’d be before his offseason knee injury, Duke has the pieces to be outstanding.
Luke Kennard has been one of the nation’s best players and somewhere inside Grayson Allen is the talent that led him to be picked as the preseason national player of the year.
Amile Jefferson has been reliably good. Jayson Tatum has been solid and looks like he could still find another gear. The Blue Devils haven’t clicked, but if they do, who wants to play them?
Kentucky has flaws even on a good day. The Wildcats don’t shoot well from the outside and they haven’t defended nearly as well as coach John Calipari had predicted. But DeAaron Fox is an elite point guard and Malik Monk is unguardable when he’s on.
In 2014 Kentucky went to the national championship game as a No. 8 seed with a freshman-laden team much like this one. Wouldn’t be stunning to see it happen again.
MY TOP 10 — 1. Gonzaga; 2. Villanova; 3. Louisville; 4. Kansas; 5. Wisconsin; 6. Baylor; 7. Oregon; 8. Arizona; 9. Virginia; 10. UCLA.
For the rest of my Top 25, visit the College Hoop Week Guide on gazettenet.com’s UMass Sports Blog.
GAMES OF THE WEEK: Thursday is a good day to settle in front of the television for one of the best doubleheaders of the year.
No. 8 North Carolina at No. 18 Duke, 8 p.m. ESPN — This is obviously a good game in any year, but despite troubles, both of these teams are national title contenders.
No. 5 Oregon at No. 10 UCLA, 10 p.m. ESPN — Their first game was a classic, decided by a Dillon Brooks 3-pointer at the buzzer. UCLA needs this to get its swagger back and to improve its seed in the Pac-12 and NCAA Tournaments.
ATLANTIC 10 GAME OF THE WEEK: Dayton at Rhode Island, Friday, 7 p.m. ESPN2 — This game will affect both teams’ seeding in next month’s Atlantic 10 Tournament and give the winner’s NCAA Tournament resume a considerable boost.
BUZZER BEATER — With just over a month left in the season, Amherst appears to be center of the 3-point shooting, cancer-fighting universe.
The leaderboard of the Coaches vs. Cancer 3-Point Challenges features Amherst at No. 1 and UMass at No. 5.
Each school encourages its fans to donate any sum of money for every 3-pointer it makes with all the money going to Coaches vs. Cancer.
Amherst (pledgeit.org/cvc-amherst) is on pace to earn $4,551, while UMass (pledgeit.org/cvc-umass) is at $1,972.
Matt Vautour can be reached at mvautour@gazettenet.com. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage