Tomorrow’s Top 25 college basketball rankings prediction: Duke poised for rise to No. 1

All but two teams in last week’s top 10 suffered losses this week in college basketball — including the Nos. 1 and 2 teams suffering defeats to Nos. 3 and 4, respectively — guaranteeing us a major shakeup Monday as the AP Top 25 poll updates. The most significant change (of many!) will be a new No. 1 team for the second time in as many weeks after No. 3 Duke downed No. 1 Michigan in the nation’s capital, 68-63, on Saturday night.

Duke will likely supplant the Wolverines at No. 1 after a brief, one-week stint at the top, bringing forward a fifth team on the season to hold the No. 1 spot. Houston also held the No. 1 spot one week (in Week 2), while Purdue and Arizona also had stretches as the top-ranked team.

Duke’s rise will obviously come at the expense of its Saturday victim, Michigan, which — along with Houston — is expected to drop in the rankings. But with eight of the top 10 teams stumbling this week, voters have their work cut out making heads or tails of how to slot teams in their ballots.

Here’s our best guess at how the rankings will look and how voters’ ballots will shake out.