The No. 23 Louisville Cardinals (14-5) and No. 5 Duke Blue Devils (18-1) are set to face off on Monday night, going head-to-head in Durham. The ACC showdown will tip off at 7 p.m. EST on ESPN.
The Blue Devils are 8.5-point home favorites with -410 moneyline odds, and the total has been set at 157.5 points. Here is a preview of the ranked conference matchup, featuring odds and lines from DraftKings Sportsbook.
Louisville at Duke Preview, Prediction
Louisville Preview
Pat Kelsey turned Louisville around last season and has kept it up this year, starting with his early nonconference wins over then-No. 9 Kentucky and Cincinnati. While the Cardinals’ loss to then-No. 25 Arkansas snapped their perfect season, they bounced back with a win over then-No. 22 Indiana in Indianapolis. Louisville lost by 21 to then-No. 20 Tennessee, then started ACC play on a 2-3 skid that included an 11-point home loss to Duke. The Cardinals have since dismantled Pittsburgh and Virginia Tech.
Xavier transfer Ryan Conwell is Louisville’s leading scorer at 19.5 points per game. He is also hitting 37.0% of his 10.2 three-point attempts a night. Star freshman Mikel Brown Jr., who missed over a month with a back injury, made his return to the tune of 20 points and six assists on Saturday. Brown is now averaging 16.9 points and 5.2 assists per game. The Cardinals have four more rotation players averaging between 9.6 and 11.8 points per game – guards Isaac McKneely, J’Vonne Hadley and Adrian Wooley and German big man Sananda Fru. McKneely, like Conwell and Brown, is hoisting up plenty of triples with 7.5 attempts per game. Fru is averaging 7.1 rebounds per game while shooting an ACC-best 78.6% from two-point territory. On the injury front, forward Khani Rooths is out with an illness again and backup big man Aly Khalifa is probable with a wrist injury.
Louisville takes and makes the fourth-most threes in the country but only hits them at the 120th-best rate. It also limits its opponents to the fourth-lowest two-point shooting percentage while ranking top-25 in both rebounds and assists per game.
The Cardinals rank No. 16 in the updated KenPom ratings, with the No. 7 adjusted offense and No. 34 adjusted defense. As for the NET rankings, Louisville comes in at No. 17, going 3-5 against Quad 1, 3-0 against Quad 2, 3-0 against Quad 3 and 5-0 against Quad 4. Monday’s game at Duke constitutes a Quad 1 matchup.
Duke Preview
The star-studded Blue Devils came out of the gates firing on all cylinders, besting Texas, then-No. 24 Kansas, then-No. 22 Arkansas, then-No. 15 Florida and then-No. 7 Michigan State en route to an 11-0 start. Duke fell to then-No. 19 Texas Tech 82-81 at Madison Square Garden to close nonconference play, but it has since started 7-0 in ACC play. On top of their win at then-No. 20 Louisville, the Blue Devils also took care of business against Georgia Tech, Florida State, then-No. 24 SMU, Cal, Stanford and Wake Forest.
Potential No. 1 pick Cameron Boozer has lived up to the hype so far, averaging 23.7 points, 9.9 rebounds, 4.1 assists and 1.9 steals per game while shooting 37.7% from deep – all of which lead Duke. Sophomore Isaiah Evans is the Blue Devils’ top three-point shooter by volume, hitting 35.0% of his 7.2 attempts per game. He is also shooting 88.2% from the free-throw line and averaging 14.4 points per game. Sophomore center Patrick Ngongba has also taken a leap with 11.0 points, 6.2 rebounds and 1.3 blocks per game. Caleb Foster and Dame Sarr round out the starting lineup with 8.9 and 6.1 points per game, while Cayden Boozer is putting up 6.5 points per game mostly off the bench.
Duke boasts the No. 3 two-point percentage in the country, all while holding its opponents to the 24th-worst mark. It also ranks No. 34 in free-throw attempts per game, with its opponents shooting the seventh-fewest free throws nationally.
Per the latest KenPom ratings, the Blue Devils rank fifth on offense, fifth on defense and third overall. They come in at No. 3 in the NET, going 8-1 against Quad 1, 3-0 against Quad 2, 2-0 against Quad 3 and 5-0 against Quad 4. Monday’s game versus Louisville constitutes a Quad 1 matchup.
Louisville at Duke Pick, Best Bet
After winning by nine-plus in each of its first eight games, Duke only did so in two of its next eight. One of the two covers in that second stretch came against Louisville, though. The Blue Devils have gone on to win by 15, 30 and 21 over their last three contests, too. On the Cardinals’ side, four of their five losses have come by at least nine points. Each of their last three and four of their last five games against ranked opponents have turned into nine-point losses or worse, and Duke already beat them by 11. While Mikel Brown Jr. was not available for Louisville in that contest, it won’t have a home-court advantage on its side Monday. Duke boasts a top-75 three-point defense, which could limit Brown’s effectiveness anyway.
