Duke has been secretly bad in the NCAA Tournament for years
While Duke has been college basketball's most consistent team for two decades, their recent results in March are shakier than you'd expect.
Since 2008 Duke has never been lower than a 3-seed. During that time, they have more 1st- and 2nd-round exits (3) than Elite 8 appearances (2). After losing to 14th-seeded Mercer in the 1st round last year, they've failed to win a game in two out of last three tournaments.
They've consistently underperformed their seed since 2008.
SB Nation put together a chart of expected wins by seed last year. Based on history, 1-seeds win 3.35 games on average, 2-seeds win 2.40 games, and 3-seeds win 1.86 games. Using that data, we calculated Duke performance relative to their seed since 2008.
It's not pretty:
They've underperformed seed expectations by a round or more in four of the last seven seasons.
Even with a national championship in 2010, Duke has 4.11 fewer wins than expected since 2008.