LOUISVILLE, Ky.— The best payout in the Kentucky Derby comes with success of the underdog. The fastest horse losing the race makes for quite the story. It doesn’t happen often.
Duke spent its Sunday in the home of mint julep and horse racing after casting its bets against Louisville for the first ACC matchup of the season. Following a slow, stumbling first half, the Blue Devils found rhythm enough in the KFC Yum! Center to turn the game around for a 76-65 road victory.
"It's been a heck of the stretch, heck of a nine games for us," head coach Jon Scheyer said after the win. "Just proud of these guys for their competitiveness and work."
When freshman forward Cooper Flagg delivered a layup with just under 11 minutes to play — Cardinals up by three — it was anyone’s game. When, a moment later, Duke’s freshman phenom tallied his fourth personal foul, it felt more like Louisville’s.
The Blue Devils (7-2, 1-0 in the ACC) felt it, and it woke them up. The two starters who had played ineffective first halves — graduate guard Sion James and freshman wing Kon Knueppel — decided to make up for it. Knueppel launched one of the triples the Blue Devil faithful have been itching for since early games, while James slammed a statement dunk and completed a couple of free throws to give Duke its first lead of the game with 8:16 on the clock. The 14-point deficit was the largest the Blue Devils have come back from since a 16-point comeback against Boston College in Jan. 2021.
Reyne Smith’s layup kept the feeling fueling Duke, so the Blue Devils went on a run. Maliq Brown, whose defense had been critical all night, turned around and made his offense just as necessary.
"He has the best hands of anybody I've ever coached," Scheyer said.
The junior forward pushed through Louisville (5-4, 0-1 in the ACC) to find room for a layup and, seconds later, a fast-break dunk of his own. Tyrese Proctor’s sixth shot of the contest gave his team a 63-57 lead.
"I feel like we just weathered the storm ... and got stops and scores when we needed to," Proctor said.
Brown’s ensuing dunk and Knueppel’s next triple made it clear that the Duke run would be more than just a spurt of energy: The Blue Devils were back. Flagg made sure the whole arena knew it with a dunk he held onto at the rim. It gave Duke a 12-point lead.
"I've grown up under the Coach K philosophy of playing your guys when they get fouls," Scheyer said. "That doesn't really phase us."
The Blue Devils waltzed onto Denny Crum Court after halftime down 37-33 and ready to do their thing: Make up for a lousy first-half performance with an outstanding one in the second. The Cardinals didn’t seem eager to give it up that easily, though. As Duke heated up with a Proctor turnaround jumper and a Flagg three, Terrence Edwards, Jr. charged through the Blue Devils to make a shot from the paint, and a frame later, Khani Rooths looked to do the same. The 6-foot-8 freshman drew a shooting foul to add a tally by Flagg’s name and up his team’s lead by one.
Over a minute passed, and nobody in the KFC Yum! Center scored, save for the one foul shot delivered by Rooths. The Cardinals, for their part, were losing the first-half momentum that had set their red-clad crowd on fire early on.
That fire had been well-earned. The Cardinals shot 8-for-16 from deep in the first half with a 44% clip from the field. On the other end of the court, their defense kept the Blue Devils stuttering. Back-to-back attempts from James fell short as the graduate guard struggled with shooting and finding an open teammate.
"In the first half, you have to credit their defense," Scheyer said. "I think you have to credit our defense in the second half."
James wasn’t the only one. Duke made just two baskets in the first 4:35 of the game, a triple each from the two Blue Devil returners. Sophomore guard Caleb Foster’s shot broke an 8-0 scoring run from Louisville and closed Duke’s deficit to four points. While the visitors dealt with a drought, Chucky Hepburn spearheaded a Cardinal effort that pushed against KenPom’s No. 1-ranked scoring defense. The senior from Omaha, Neb., answered Proctor’s opening three with his own before setting up Reyne Smith for another by stealing the ball from Duke.
At 7:44, the Cardinals called their first timeout to recover from a spurt of Blue Devil points — Knueppel had caught a pass from a Flagg fastbreak for a layup, and Gillis had made a three in Duke’s next possession. Shades of Wednesday’s Blue Devils began to creep back onto the Denny Crum Court as Brown caught a defensive rebound and, a few moments later, took a steal from the Cardinals. But they were only shades; between Brown’s moments, Flagg missed a layup and Gillis couldn’t catch the offensive rebound.
The Cardinals, on the other hand, were forging an offensive performance mostly with successful shooting. In the first period, Duke attempted 33 field goals to Louisville’s 25, but made 12 while the Cardinals made 11. Louisville outscored Duke from behind the arc and at the stripe, making up for its recent loss of star scorer Kasean Pryor, whose torn ACL has him on the bench for the rest of the season. If it hadn’t been for nine points from Foster and seven from Flagg, Duke’s deficit might have been harder to recover from.
"It was just a tough win," Scheyer said. "And I think this group has already shown in this short season, the character and heart that we have."
The Blue Devils will next take on Incarnate Word, back home in Cameron Indoor Stadium Tuesday at 7 p.m.
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Sophie Levenson is a Trinity junior and a sports managing editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.