2025 NCAA Tournament: Joe Lunardi breaks down Auburn vs. Duke for no.1 overall seed ahead of conference tourneys
Conference tournaments are upon us, and that means a few teams are jockeying for the No. 1 overall seed in the 2025 NCAA Tournament. On Sunday evening, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi took a few minutes to break down how close Duke is to taking over Auburn as the No. 1 overall seed in the tourney.
The Duke Blue Devils and Auburn Tigers have been a cut above college basketball teams across the country for much of the 2024-2025 season. The Blue Devils have been historically dominant with their average margin of victory, and quite frankly, the Auburn Tigers have looked very sharp themselves.
And as it turns out, it’s not even close in Luardi’s eyes as to who will be selected as the top overall seed. The Auburn Tigers have simply been too dominant all season long,
“I think under normal circumstances we’d already be talking about it. Because you didn’t even mention the fact that wait for it, Duke beat Auburn. Now, admittedly, it was over three months ago. And it was a home game, straight up, at Cameron Indoor,” Lunardi began.
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Duke’s point differential in ACC play this season was a jaw-dropping-plus 434 points. That’s the largest by a power-conference team in league play since 1953-1954 Kentucky, according to Stathead. To put this season into context, Duke’s average margin of victory in the 2024-2025 campaign has been 22.2 points per game, which puts them just behind the Blue Devils squad of 1998-1999. Still, their average margin of victory this year ranks second amongst all teams in ACC history.
“But Auburn was so far ahead of the field that they were able to take these two losses and could conceivably lose their quarterfinal in Nashville this coming week. And still hold on to the No. 1 overall seed. Did I mention 16 quad 1 wins. And they’re 16-4 against quad 1 overall. Nobody’s even close to that. I’d be shocked if a week from right now, Auburn isn’t the first name called on the selection show,” Lunardi finished.
To put things in perspective on just how dominant the Auburn Tigers have been this year, they have three more wins against Top 25 teams than the entire ACC combined. They’ve only lost four games this season, with three of those coming against Top 10 opponents: Florida (90-81), Duke (84-78), and Alabama (93-91 in OT).