By Derek DeBurger
No. 17 Louisville will start the new year off with the Duke Blue Devils in the KFC Yum! Center on Thursday.
Despite having one of the best young coaches in the sport in Kara Lawson, Duke is a team that has not gotten out to the best start this season.
There’s no reason to think this game will be easy. Lawson is a gritty coach, and that energy translates to her players. Duke is a tough team to score on and aggressive on defense. They average 10.2 steals per game (ranking 61st in the country) and a whopping 7.2 blocks per game (3rd in the country). Louisville has already played two teams with similar averages, Alabama and Ole Miss, splitting the two matchups.
Duke is also pretty competent on offense, too, with one of the best shooting percentages in the country at 46.5%. Similar to Miami, though, Duke has a pretty big problem with turnovers; even bigger than the Cards.
In many ways, Louisville and Duke are very similar teams. The statistics in most categories are neck-and-neck. Louisville has a big advantage in athleticism. I’m expecting a game like the one Louisville just played against Miami: physical with a lot of turnovers forced that come down to the final seconds.
If Louisville can limit turnovers–which has been their Achilles heel this season–then the Cards should have a good chance at running away with this one.
This could be a great chess match between two tough ACC opponents.
