Louisville basketball: How to beat Duke, from their perspective

Louisville basketball hosts the best team in the country in the Duke Blue Devils on Tuesday night. We went one-on-one with Ball Durham on how the Cards match up.

Louisville basketball hosts No. 2 Duke at the KFC Yum! Center on Tuesday night in front of the Cards’s first ever black out crowd (color scheme, not… yeah, you get it).

Ahead of the prime time match up, we caught up with Duke’s Ball Durham to gain some insight on how the Cards can keep up with the prohibitive national championship favorites.

Big Red Louie: Duke came into the season one of the favorites to win it all and, from our view, has probably exceeded expectations. As someone close to the program, where do you feel this team has room for improvement?

Ball Durham: The biggest area of the game where Duke has to improve this season is 3-point shooting and at the free throw line. The Blue Devils are shooting 32.0% from 3-point range and 67.7% from the line. While Duke doesn’t need to shoot the 3-point ball as much this season, sometimes the team falls in love with it and that’s what gets them in trouble. Free throws are a whole different story. The free throw line might not win you a game, but it can certainly lose you a game and going into March, Duke must improve at the line.

Everyone knows about Zion and RJ, but who is the X Factor for this team?

BD: Who is Duke’s X-Factor is a loaded question because there are two answers. Defensively, it’s Tre Jones and you don’t have to think twice about that. Jones will take the other teams best guard out of the game every single possession. Offensively, it’s Cam Reddish. When Reddish is aggressive and hitting from 3-point territory, Duke is virtually unbeatable because you know Zion Williamson and RJ Barrett will get their 20-25 points per game also.

We’ve seen Duke slip up just twice this year, and when they get going from deep, they seem damn near unbeatable. If Louisville is going to walk away from this game with a win, what has to happen?

BD: Surprisingly, I think Louisville has a nice draw playing Duke in this situation. The Blue Devils are coming off of a major road victory against Virginia and will be excited to get back home to play NC State this weekend and North Carolina next week. However, since Louisville is ranked that’s where the trouble comes in. Duke has recently under estimated Georgia Tech and Boston College and trailed at halftime before winning both games by about 20 points. Duke loved the opportunity to gon the road and play against a ranked team, but Louisville should force Duke to beat them from beyond the arc and try to get Zion and RJ in foul trouble.

Does Zion Williamson have a weakness? It seems like every game we see him blossom in different areas. What does it take to slow him down, and is it even worth it to try?

BD: It’s amazing how the perception on Zion Williamson changes just about every week. At the start of the season he was just a dunker. Then he became a good basketball player, then a great basketball player, now people just refer to him as a freak of nature, and rightly so. When you get a step on him on the defensive end, it doesn’t matter because he’s so explosive, he can chase you down from behind and swat one off the backboard. The knock on Williamson now is that he isn’t a good 3-point shooter, but he is shooting 40.9% from beyond the arc in ACC play. The best way to attack him is go to right at him and hope he gets into foul trouble.

Duke went into a College Gameday atmosphere at Virginia and completely mitigated the effects the crowd would have had right out the gate. Even as a young team, they seem so unbothered by road atmospheres. Do you expect more of the same in a blackout at Louisville?

BD: Regardless of venue, this Duke team thrives on the biggest stage. RJ Barrett said after the Virginia game, “we wear black on the road, because it’s the other teams funeral.” If that doesn’t get you fired up, I don’t know what will. Obviously the crowd will be loud and excited on Tuesday night, but that doesn’t seem to bother this young Duke team and it should be a great game.

For this game, however, Louisville will be wearing black and hoping to create a “funeral” for the Blue Devils. It’s going to take a near flawless effort from the Cards, and a rowdy crowd to flip the script on Duke.

If there’s one that we’ve learned from Chris Mack’s squad, it’s that when their backs are against the wall, they are often at their best.