With four games to play, No. 10 Duke still remains in position to win the Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season championship and improve its resume for a high seed in the NCAA Tournament.
So the Blue Devils will want to focus on what’s ahead after a newsworthy weekend. Their next game will come Wednesday night against struggling Louisville at Durham, N.C.
Certainly there are questions for Duke (21-6, 12-4), which resides 1 1/2 games behind first-place North Carolina in the conference following the Blue Devils’ 83-79 loss Saturday at Wake Forest.
The aftermath of that game has drawn considerable attention because Duke standout Kyle Filipowski was injured during a court storming involving excited Wake Forest fans.
So Filipowski’s status for the Louisville game is unclear, at least publicly. Because of the apparent knee injury, Duke coach Jon Scheyer said Monday that the player’s availability for Monday’s practice was undetermined.
Filipowski provided team highs of 17 points, eight rebounds and five assists against Wake Forest, which made key plays in the final minutes to avenge a loss from earlier in the month.
Filipowski, a sophomore, reached the 1,000-point mark for his career, becoming just the eighth Blue Devil in the last 50 years to reach that milestone within two seasons.
“I know our team. I love our team,” Scheyer said. “We’re going to learn from this and bounce back, but the first thing we’ve got to do is get healthy and see where we’re at.”
Last-place Louisville (8-19, 3-13) has lost three games in a row and 16 of its last 20. The Cardinals will be coming off a one-week layoff since losing 72-50 at home to Notre Dame last Wednesday night.
“We have to go back to the drawing board as a team and fix it,” Louisville forward Brandon Huntley-Hatfield said, noting that with a week prior to a rematch with Duke, the Cardinals would “shift our focus.”
Duke won 83-69 at Louisville on Jan. 23 with Tyrese Proctor hitting for 24 points, Mark Mitchell racking up 20 and Filipowski recording 17 points and 15 rebounds. The Blue Devils held an 18-point lead in the first half before the margin dwindled to three points in the second half.
“They make games interesting,” Scheyer said of the Cardinals.
In that Louisville game, Proctor described the Cardinals as playing “with house money. They’ve got nothing to lose.”
Huntley-Hatfield turned in 20 points and 11 rebounds in the first meeting.
Duke, which has played three consecutive road games, had been on a roll before the Wake Forest game, winning five straight games.
“I think we made too many careless mistakes,” Blue Devils guard Jeremy Roach said.
Duke likes the consistency from freshman guard Jared McCain, who has double-digit point totals in nine of the last 11 games.
Duke has won the last four meetings with Louisville. Overall, the Blue Devils are 4-3 in home games vs. the Cardinals.
–Field Level Media