The Duke Blue Devils sent out a statement to the rest of the country with their Wednesday victory over the No. 2 Auburn Tigers, and they have the chance to back that up in their first conference game of the year on Sunday.
The Louisville Cardinals kicked off their first season under new head coach Pat Kelsey with five wins in their first six games, a far cry from their form under Kenny Payne the past two seasons. Some recent losses have potentially lowered the year-one trajectory, however, and the Blue Devils surely enter with all the confidence in the world.
Superstar freshman [autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag] put together his third 20-point performance of the season against Auburn, each of which came against a preseason top-25 opponent. The 17-year-old leads Duke in four of the five major statistical categories, and a strong run through the ACC could vault him back in front of the national awards conversation.
Here are our staff predictions for the first conference game on the schedule.
Ryan Haley, Duke Wire site editor
The Cardinals might end the season as one of the top six or seven teams in the conference (although the recent loss of starting forward Kasean Pryor to an ACL tear undoubtedly changes their ceiling). However, it’s a tall task for Kelsey to put things together quickly enough to beat Duke in December.
Louisville’s defense has thrived upon creating turnovers so far this season, and between Duke’s occasional issues with ball security and the lack of tape on this era of the Cardinals, the first half might get a little wonky. But there’s no one on the Louisville roster who can slow Flagg down for a full 40 minutes, especially with the way guys like Tyrese Proctor, Maliq Brown, and Sion James have played alongside him recently.
Duke 84, Louisville 70
Josiah Caswell, Staff Writer
This game isn’t a freebie by any means, but it doesn’t look good for Louisville. While the Blue Devils are on top of the world right now after their massive victory over Auburn, Louisville is reeling.
The Cardinals are on a two-game losing streak, falling in blowout fashion to No. 20 Ole Miss. They also dropped a close game to the Oklahoma Sooners. Their best wins, on the contrary? Indiana and West Virginia.
The worst part of it for Louisville is that it just lost one of its best players for the rest of the season. Pryor averaged 12.0 points and 6.1 rebounds to start the year before his season-ending ACL tear.
I don’t think Duke will need its best game, but the Blue Devils will still need to see solid performances from their freshmen, per usual. Ultimately, I think they win big.
Duke 85, Louisville 68