After having their eight-game winning streak snapped in a home loss to Pittsburgh on Saturday, the No. 7 Duke Blue Devils will aim to bounce back on Tuesday at Louisville.
Saturday’s result in Cameron Indoor Stadium marked the first time that Duke (13-4, 4-2 Atlantic Coast Conference) had lost at home to Pitt since 1979.
The Blue Devils simply couldn’t stop Panthers’ sharpshooter Blake Hinson, who tied an ACC record for the best 3-point shooting percentage in a game by going 7-of-7 from deep. After the buzzer sounded, Hinson hopped onto the press row table to taunt the Cameron Crazies.
It’s an event that obviously would not have happened had the Blue Devils won. After the 80-76 loss, second-year Duke coach Jon Scheyer felt compelled to apologize to fans for the scene.
“I didn’t like our start to begin with. That’s something we have to address,” Scheyer said. “I want to apologize to our fans, too, by the way. What happened at the end, that can’t happen and that’s on us, and that’s not acceptable. So, for us, we have to watch the game, learn from it and move on quickly.”
Duke played the game without sophomore forward Mark Mitchell and senior guard Jeremy Roach.
Without Mitchell’s 5.6 rebounds per game, Duke was outrebounded by seven. The Blue Devils didn’t win the rebounding battle in any of their four losses.
Roach is the Blue Devils’ most experienced player, and his absence broke his streak of 32 consecutive starts.
Without Roach’s steadying hand, Duke — which entered the game with the nation’s seventh-best assist-turnover ratio with a plus-1.82 mark — had the same number of turnovers and assists (11). In Roach’s last 10 games, he notched 37 assists to just eight turnovers. Both Roach and Mitchell are nursing knee injuries.
Without that pair, Duke leaned on Jared McCain, who had 20 points, and Kyle Filipowski, who finished with 19. Filipowski leads the Blue Devils in scoring and rebounding with 18.2 points and 8.6 rebounds per game.
Louisville (6-12, 1-6) is coming off its third straight loss, falling 90-65 at Wake Forest on Saturday. It was the third time this season the Cardinals had knocked down two or fewer 3-pointers, and they are 1-2 in those games. Meanwhile, Wake Forest connected on 18 shots from behind the arc, the most the Cardinals have allowed in a game this season.
The Cardinals never led and lost the rebounding battle by 10.
“They put us on our heels. We didn’t communicate well enough, we didn’t defend well enough,” Louisville coach Kenny Payne said. “There are no excuses. At the end of the day, we gotta go out and perform. We got to go out and play with a fight. Really, we got to go out and defend. The elephant in the room is if we allow a team to shoot the ball like that, you’re not winning.”
Michael James has led Louisville with 14.1 points and also averages 5.6 rebounds per game. Tre White had a team-high 17 points against Wake and is averaging 12.5 points and 5.6 rebounds per game.
Duke has won six of the last 10 meetings and is 3-3 all-time at Louisville.
–Field Level Media