The Duke Blue Devils will surely take the floor as underdogs against No. 1 Kansas in Las Vegas on Tuesday, but the ESPN Basketball Power Index isn’t so sure.
With the Blue Devils second in the national rankings after their Friday victory over Arizona, the ESPN Matchup Predictor gives Duke a 69.8% chance to upset the top team in the country.
Despite their 5-0 record and position atop every national ranking, the Jayhawks are all the way down at No. 10 in the BPI rankings. Through five games, the Blue Devils are scoring one more point per game than Kansas (84.6-83.6), but Duke has allowed 10 fewer points a night (57.4-67.6). After holding Arizona to 55 points and Wofford to 35 over the past two games, the Blue Devils lead the KenPom adjusted defensive efficiency metric.
The Jayhawks defeated the North Carolina Tar Heels, 92-89, but they did so in front of their home crowd. In Kansas’s only other major conference game, it beat the Michigan State Spartans 77-69.
Tuesday’s game tips off at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time on ESPN.
