Louisville basketball earned its fourth ACC win last night and improved to 14-5 on the season after the Cardinals' impressive 85-71 victory. Louisville was led by the former 5-star phenom Mikel Brown Jr. as he made his anticipated return after missing eight games and didn’t miss a beat, scoring 20 points and adding six assists.
There is a lot to unfold from yesterday's Cards game, but a massive road game against the Duke Blue Devils is coming up this Monday night. However, many fans and media have been wondering what the Cardinals' plans are, as the city of Louisville was expected to receive nearly a foot of snow on Jan. 24 and into Jan. 25.
So, with Louisville receiving that much snow, and the Cards game Monday night, fans raised the question of, how do the Cardinals plan to get to Durham?
Related: It only took 5 minutes for Mikel Brown Jr. to remind Louisville what it was missing
Weather could play a major role in Louisville’s showdown with Duke
Pat Kelsey spoke after the game Saturday evening about Louisville’s plans to get to Duke, and with a big smile on his face, he broke down Louisville’s mindset and their travel plans as of Saturday evening.
“As of right now, we can’t get out tomorrow," Kelsey stated Saturday evening. "We are flying day of the game. Awesome, let’s figure it out. When have you ever done that? I’m going back to my Winthrop days, man. Big South. Drive five hours to Radford, eat some sandwiches on the bus for a pregame meal, play the game, and drive back. So, been there done that.”
This certainly isn’t the ideal situation for the Cardinals' travel plans to face the No. 5 team in the country, but it is out of their control. Louisville would usually leave at some point on Sunday so they can arrive, settle in, but now it appears Louisville will leave early Monday morning and will have to do everything they can to not be stiff on the road against one of the top teams in the nation.
“We’ll figure it out,” Kelsey stated. “Looking forward to the challenge, obviously, we all know how good Duke is, and it should be a big-time college basketball game.”
The Cardinals played Duke earlier this month, and Louisville collapsed in the second half after losing the half 46-26, falling 84-73. Louisville was, of course, without Brown in that game, so the Cards will get a major boost, but the Blue Devils are getting a huge home-court advantage in this game because of the weather and how it's shaping the Cards' travel schedule.
A flight from Louisville to Durham is about three hours, so the Cards will have to get loose quickly and will have a huge disadvantage because of the travel on the day of the game. ESPN Analytics gives Louisville just a 22.7 percent chance of winning this game as of 6 a.m. Sunday morning.
It was already going to be a challenging game, but now the weather is forcing them to travel on the day of the game, which adds a whole other x-factor for the Cards heading into that marquee road game in a tough environment.
The Cards and the Blue Devils are set to tipoff at 7 p.m. local time as of right now inside Cameron Indoor Stadium. For all the latest on Louisville basketball's 2025-26 season and recruiting, stay tuned.