For Duke basketball to reach the Final Four in Atlanta, it will have to beat top-seeded Louisville tonight.
Blue Devil head coach Mike Krzyzewski is 11-1 in Elite Eight games in his career. The last time he and Cardinal head coach Rick Pitino faced off in the Elite Eight was in 1992, and Christian Laettner hit "The Shot" to lift Duke past Kentucky.
Here are your previews of tonight's action.
The team that will get to the Final Four will be the one with the best guard play. The Cardinals feature one of the most aggressive pressure defenses in the country while Duke's guards are among the best at taking care of the ball and shooting it:
When the Blue Devils (30-5) and the Cardinals (32-5) meet at Lucas Oil Stadium Sunday, they will each feature one of the best scoring guards in the nation—Seth Curry and Russ Smith—but also start a guard who has struggled to find himself this postseason: Quinn Cook and Peyton Siva.Get even more coverage of Duke basketball in the 2013 NCAA Tournament
For Curry and Smith, Sunday night’s game could prove difficult due to health reasons. Curry’s lower leg problems have been well documented this season. The senior guard rarely practices and wears a walking boot in between games.
In the five games that Duke has played with one or zero days of rest between them, Curry has shot a mere 30.2 percent from the floor and 20.0 percent from beyond the arc. Those numbers pale in comparison to the 46.7 and 43.7 percent figures Curry has posted this season.
Smith has been, in his own words, “terribly sick,” this weekend, though that didn’t stop him from matching a career-high 31 points against Oregon in the Sweet 16. While his teammates were trying to catch their breath during timeouts, Smith was “hacking in our faces,” as coach Pitino put it in the postgame press conference.
And here's a further breakdown of the Louisville team, taking a look at their defense—the most efficient in the nation—and their depth, both of which have led them to be the hottest team in college basketball:
Since the 2007-08 season, Pitino’s Cardinals have ranked in the top five in the nation in defensive efficiency five out of six seasons. In each of the last two seasons, they have been No. 1 in the nation.Even though Duke dismantled a highly-touted Michigan State defense Friday night in Indianapolis, Louisville’s defensive unit is yet another significant step above. And unlike a Spartan defense that was content to apply pressure without generating huge quantities of turnovers, the disruptive Cardinals are incredibly aggressive going for the ball.
Get even more coverage of Duke basketball in the 2013 NCAA Tournament
Six Louisville players average more than a steal per game, and Cardinal opponents turn the ball over on a remarkable 27.8 percent of their possessions. Pitino’s squad forces 18.7 turnovers per game, the second most in Division I.
When Duke and Louisville met in the Battle 4 Atlantis championship in November—a 76-71 Blue Devil victory—Duke turned the ball over 14 times despite averaging 10.6 turnovers per game, the ninth-best clip in the nation.
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