Is Duke Still a #1 Seed After the Loss to Maryland? Let's Do a Top Seed Blind Test

Duke lost yesterday to Maryland for a second time in the ACC quarterfinals, and now the questions begin. Does Duke really deserve a #1 seed? They won neither the league regular season or tournament title, and Jason McIntyre believes Miami should be a top seed if they win both. As ESPN Stats & Info notes, Duke has been much worse as a 2 seed than as a 1 seed since 1995. (Of course, some of that is that they are better when getting a #1 seed, not because of the seed itself). The selection committee does not care about specific honors. They will look at each game played and put them up against the other candidates. Wins in November count the same as in March.

So let’s do a blind taste test, with fake names inserted for the RPI profiles of ten candidates for a #1 seed. I suppose you could add up the records and go track this info down if you wanted to still vote for your favorite team. I’m interested, though. What would you value. The Top 25 win percentage? Avoiding bad losses if teams are relatively close? Overall record against the Top 100? I will reveal the identities, and hopefully the results of the poll with a good sample size of votes, in a later post.

Here are the profiles for our ten candidates:

Have at it. Vote in the poll. What you cannot tell from this is whether the Gnus or the Jaguars have a history of winning national championships or are a team without a big reputation. Good luck, and may the best four fictional team win.

[poll id=”353″]