AP men's college basketball Top 25: Auburn's 8-week run at No. 1 ends as Duke takes over

With less than a week until Selection Sunday, theres a new No.

1 in the Associated Press mens college basketball Top 25.

Duke overtook Auburn for the top spot after the Tigers lost back-to-back games against Texas A&M and Alabama to end their SEC regular-season slate, while the Blue Devils completed a season sweep of rival North Carolina to finish 19-1 in ACC play and 29-3 on the season ahead of this weeks conference tournaments.

Advertisement Outright Big 12 champion Houston jumped Auburn for the No.

2 spot.

Auburn, like Duke, remains squarely in line for a No.

1 seed in the NCAA Tournament and will be the No.

1 seed in its conference tournament this week.

Farther down the rankings, Texas A&M rose eight spots from No.

22 to No.

14 after knocking off Auburn, and streaky Big Ten representatives Oregon and Illinois returned to the Top 25 at Nos.

23 and 24, respectively.

Heres the full poll, along with the ballot of The Athletic s C.J.

Moore and a few notes on teams that stand out: Should Duke or Auburn be No.

1? Auburns first two-game losing streak of the season likely made it pretty easy for voters this week, but as I wrote in the explanation of my top 25 ballot , it is a debate worth having.

The Tigers are still No.

1 in every resume-based ranking system, and Duke is No.

1 across the board in any ranking system that factors in efficiency margins.

These two teams are more like 1A and 1B, but because Duke has historically strong computer numbers the second-best in the history of KenPom.com if season ended today and has the head-to-head advantage, I went with the Blue Devils.

In the eyes of the selection committee, Auburn probably should still be the NCAA Tournaments No.

1 overall seed on the strength of 16 Quadrant 1 wins, four ahead of the next-closest team (Michigan State).

GO DEEPER Marks: The case for Cooper Flagg as college basketball's player of the year Late risers The two teams that helped themselves most in the last week are probably No.

4 Florida and No.

17 BYU.

The Gators got a huge win at Alabama and smoked a good Ole Miss team by 19 at home on Saturday, which likely gives them an inside track on a No.

1 seed.

The race for that final No.

1 is still tight, however, with Alabama, Tennessee and Michigan State all having legitimate cases, and Houston may not be a lock to receive one just yet, either.

This weeks conference tournaments could still have a say in that final decision.

Advertisement BYU is not up for No.

1 seed consideration but has been climbing seed lines and sits comfortably in the Top 25 with eight wins in a row.

The Cougars are all the way up to No.

10 in Bart Torviks ratings.

Outside of Duke, no one is better right now on the offensive end.

And if you use the start of BYUs winning streak as a data collection start date at Torvik, the Cougars rate as the second-best team in college hoops the last four weeks.

GO DEEPER Bubble watch: Who's sweating as championship week begins? Why I havent ranked Memphis lately The Tigers continue to show up in the Top 25 (holding at No.

16 this week) but not my ballot, and Ive been asked why by some Memphis fans on social media.

I attempt to use both resume-based and quality-based rankings in building a top 25.

Torvik conveniently lays out these numbers here , and although Memphis has solid resume-based numbers (a composite 17.7 ranking), its quality average (49.7) is the number that is hard to look past.

I give the quality-based metrics slightly more pull, and when you combine that with some of the losses Memphis has two to teams outside of the KenPom top 100 and a third to a team ranked 90th that would make the Tigers an outlier among the teams on my ballot.

Its likely the selection committee will also have the Tigers outside of their top 25.

(Photo: Stew Milne / Getty Images).

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