Duke Basketball: Louisville and crowd will be fired up to host Blue Devils

The Duke Basketball team is back on the road against the Louisville Cardinals and the Cardinals and its fans will be ready to welcome the Blue Devils on Tuesday night.

The No. 16 Louisville Cardinals come into Tuesday’s game against the No. 2 Duke Blue Devils with a 17-7 record and 8-3 in the ACC.

Nothing has come easy to Head Coach Chris Mack and his team in Mack’s first year at Louisville.

In the non-conference schedule, there was a stretch of five of six games where the Cardinals played high major teams and possibly all NCAA Tournament teams.

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The stretch started in Brooklyn, NY where Louisville would fall to then No. 5 Tennessee 92-81 and followed that up with another loss in Brooklyn to Marquette, 77-74 in OT.

The Cardinals would be happy to return home, but awaiting them where the No. 9 Michigan State Spartans and Louisville would be primed for the upset, knocking off the Cardinals 82-78 in yet another overtime.

Louisville would then head back to the northeast to face the Seton Hall Pirates and the Cardinals would come out with another close victory 70-65.

After a victory over Central Arkansas, the Cards would hit the road one more time and go down fighting against Indiana, falling to the Hoosiers 68-67.

After three home wins, Louisville would welcome in-state rival the Kentucky Wildcats and Kentucky would run Louisville out of its own building, winning 71-58 and sending the Cardinals into ACC play on a sour note.

After a win over Miami and a road overtime loss to Pittsburgh, Louisville would rattle off six straight wins, with the most impressive effort coming in a 21-point victory on the road against then No. 12 North Carolina.

Another victory over a ranked team came in the stretch for Louisville, defeating then No. 21 NC State, with wins over Boston College, Georgia Tech, Pittsburgh, and Wake Forest also in there.

Since those wins, Louisville has stumbled of late, losing two of its last three at home against then No. 9 North Carolina and on the road against No. 22 Florida State.

The only victory for the Cardinals in that stretch came on the road against No. 11 Virginia Tech who was without star point guard Justin Robinson.

Louisville has been led this season by its six-foot-eight-inch forward Jordan Nwora who leads the team in scoring at 17.6 points per game and in rebounding at 7.6 rebounds per game.

The Cardinals also have two other players averaging double-digits points in Dwayne Sutton who is second on the team in scoring and rebounding with 11.0 points and 7.0 rebounds per game.

Christen Cunningham is Louisville’s leading assist man, averaging 4.7 assists per game to go along with 10.7 points and 2.3 rebounds per game.

Aside from the trio listed above, who all averaging over 30 minutes per game, no one else on the Cardinals averages over 20 minutes per game but two key names to keep an eye on are Steven Enoch and Ryan McMahon.

Enoch is a six-foot-ten-inch center who averages 9.2 points and 5.0 rebounds per game and has the ability to make the 3-point ball, shooting 42.9% from beyond the arc.

McMahon is a lethal shooting off the bench for Chris Mack. Only averaging 8.0 points per game, McMahon can take over a game once he gets hot and is shooting 40.8% from the field, 37.9% from 3-point range, and 94.4% from the free throw line.

The Duke Blue Devils will have its hand full on the road once again against a hungry and feisty Louisville team with tip-off coming shortly after 9:00 pm ET on Tuesday night from the KFC Yum! Center and televised on ESPN.

Stay tuned to Ball Durham on Twitter, @Ball_Durham, and here at our website, balldurham.com, for complete coverage of the Duke Blue Devils vs. the Louisville Cardinals.

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