For a team that always gets an easy road, Duke hasn't made it to many FFs lately. Is it only 2 FFs (both title years) since 2002? So the easy road doesn't seem to help them very much.
The problem with pushing Duke down farther is who do you place ahead of them? Of the 5 seeds, for example, only Purdue would be one worthy of moving ahead of Duke. I think Duke's inevitable 4 seed has more to do w/ the teams behind them than it does Duke. Now the "easy" bracket is another story...
They lost to IU in the round of 32 in 2002. They went in 2004 with Redick.