Stock Up, Stock Down: Examining a second straight Duke basketball loss

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Duke basketball forward Joey Baker (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images) /

The Duke basketball team dropped its second straight game on Saturday evening to the Louisville Cardinals and despite the failed comeback attempt, there were not too many players that excelled.

Things have not gone according to plan the last week for the Duke basketball team.

The Blue Devils started the week at No. 3 in the country and undefeated in ACC play and by Tuesday night Duke had suffered its first loss in conference play to a less than stellar Clemson team.

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Things would only get more difficult for Duke with one of the favorites in the ACC, the then No. 11 Louisville Cardinals, coming to Durham on Saturday night.

Both games were almost carbon copies of each other, Duke struggled in the first half and got down early, and then tried to make a comeback in the second half, but ultimately ran out of gas in the final minutes.

Granted, running out of gas could be attributed to not having Wendell Moore and Joey Baker on Tuesday against the Tigers, but the Blue Devils did have Baker available on Saturday while Moore remains sidelined with a broken hand.

Against the Cards, Duke turned the basketball over 16 times and only shot 24.0 percent (6-of-25) from 3-point range but it was the Blue Devils defense that lacked focus and intensity.

Louisville shot 48.3 percent (29-of-60) from the floor and 50.0 percent from 3-point territory (7-of-14) en route to its 79-73 victory.

Duke was even on the backboards with Louisville as both teams grabbed 38 rebounds each, but the Blue Devils only surrendered eight offensive rebounds while recording 14 offensive boards themselves.

The Blue Devils had a chance to win the game, but Louisville responded to every single Duke run and despite its chance in the end, it just didn’t seem that Duke had many players perform up to its standards.

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