Drop us a line This time was supposed to be different. Louisville with Mikel Brown was supposed to be a much tougher out. That’s what we thought, anyway. We thought it would be a really tight, challenging game. Not so much, as Duke ran the Cardinals out of the gym, 83-52. And Brown wasn’t much of a factor at all.
Both teams started hot, but Duke was a little hotter and pulled out to an early 13-6 lead. 16:43 in.
The Blue Devils kept a narrow lead but the Cards took the lead at 25-24 with 4:30 left.
But Duke took the lead back quickly and as it turned out, that would be the only time all night that Louisville was in front.
Because after that, Duke just turned on the afterburners and made Louisville look like a Thanksgiving turkey that spent way too much time in the oven.
Duke burned Louisville to a crisp.
The Blue Devils rolled to a 10-point halftime lead and things just got worse in the second.
The Blue Devils pushed the lead to 16 1:41 into the second half and it just got worse from there. So what happened?
Basically, it was a combination of good offense and great defense as Duke held Louisville to 32% from outside and 30% overall.
We were concerned about Brown, but Brown hit just 1-13. Isaac McKneely was 2-6 and J’Vonne Hadley was 3-10. Other than Ryan Conwell, who finished with 18 on 7-14 from the floor, the rest of the team shot 3-11.
Duke also crushed Louisville on the boards, 47-6 and 15-9 on the offensive boards. Basically, there wasn’t really an area where Louisville looked better.
Of the starters for Duke, Cam Boozer shot 8-16/1-4, Pat Ngongba was 5-8/0-1, Isaiah Evans was 5-11/2-8, Caleb Foster was 2-6/2-3 and Dame Sarr was 1-3/0-2.
The bench hit 10-18 and grabbed 16 rebounds. About the only area where Duke didn’t truly excel was at the line, where they hit 13-18. Boozer hit 2-4 and Foster was 1-4. That might hurt some night, but this was not that night.
Well, there was one other area fairly obvious to the layman: Duke has done a great job at times this season of turning teams over and getting out into transition. The problem is that all too often, they don’t finish those opportunities. That happened again tonight but it didn’t matter. Again though, it might later.
However, there is no denying the power of Duke’s defense. Louisville is a very good team and the Devils just took them apart. Other than defense, one of the prettiest things in this game was the ball movement Duke showed. You basically have two ways to score. One is to just overpower people, a la Shaquille O’ Neal. That works, but first you have to find a Shaq and they don’t come along very often.
The second way is to move the ball fast enough and well enough that you get a defense off balance. When you do that, you get lots of chances to score. Duke’s ball movement in this game was superb, and part of the reason why it’s so impressive is that it starts with the best and most experienced players. Boozer finished with 19 points, 10 rebounds and 4 assists. He could easily try for 40 points but his teammates know he’ll get them the ball because his focus is winning.
That spreads and so you see everyone else willing to pass. Ngongba, Sarr, Foster, Maliq Brown and Nik Khamenia all finished with two assists because trust and respect is there.
Speaking of Khamenia, his second half was his best half of the year. Khamenia finished with 14 points, all after halftime, on 5-6/3-4 from the floor. He was also defending hard and picked off one pass and took it in for easy money.
Overall, this was one of Duke’s best performances of the year. Louisville may have looked bad, but that’s ridiculous. Duke just had a great night and made them look bad. This is a very good team, which makes Duke’s win that much more impressive.
The team goes to Virginia Tech on Saturday, where the Hokies usually give Duke fits, then return home for Boston College before going to UNC on February 7th.
Notes – With the win, Duke is now 30-1 in the last 31 ACC games, including ACC tournament games…that’s 96.7%…maybe it was Duke’s suffocating defense, but Mikel Brown looked really young…like a high school kid, which he was this time a year ago…if Khamenia can match the level of play we saw here, that’s a huge addition for Duke…the Cards defended Boozer really well at times but ultimately he’s going to get his…Brown continues to astound with his brilliant defense, most of which comes down to his hands and feet…quick feet allow quick hands to be in the right place at the right time…
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- Box Score
