College Basketball Predictions: Duke At Louisville

The seventh-ranked Duke Blue Devils will look to rebound from their humbling loss the last time out to pull off the upset over the 15th-ranked Louisville Cardinals when the two national championship hopefuls square off on Saturday. Now, let’s find out which team is offering the best value in this highly-anticipated pairing.

A Closer Look At The College Basketball Expert Predictions: Blue Devils At Cardinals

When:  Saturday, January 14, 2017 at 12:00 PM ET Where: KFC Yum! Center, Louisville, Kentucky    

Why Bet on Duke

Duke (14-3 SU, 7-9 ATS) has a boatload of future NBA performers, but that didn’t stop them from falling to Florida State 88-72 on Tuesday night as I correctly predicted one day earlier. The Duke Blue Devils got a team-high 23 points from Luke Kennard and 21 points from Jayson Tatum but got just nine points from the enigmatic Grayson Allen while allowing four Seminoles to reach double figures in scoring. Duke averages 84.5 points per game to rank an impressive 19th in scoring nationally while simultan0eously limiting the opposition to just 65.9 points per game to rank 57th nationally in points allowed.

Why Bet on Louisville

Louisville (14-3 SU, 10-5 ATS) has won two straight and comes into this huge battle off a hard-fought 85-80 win over Pittsburgh on Thursday night. The Cardinals placed four players in double digits in scoring and got a team-high 22 points from Quentin Snyder in the win. The Cardinals are averaging 75.6 points per game to rank 139th in scoring nationally but are limiting their opponents to just 61.9 points per game defensively to rank a stupendous 16th in points allowed nationally. Louisville has held seven of its first 16 opponents under 60 points.  

Expert Pick & Final Score Prediction

I wrote it about Duke for their Tuesday night matchup and I’ll write it again. The ‘basketball gods’ can’t be real happy with cheating ass Grayson Allen, nor with the kid gloves treatment that head coach Mike Krzyzewski that gave him in suspending him for just one game for his most recent tripping incident. Now, the Blue Devils are going to pay for their insolence with another loss, this time to the defensive-minded Louisville Cardinals. Duke has gone 1-4 ATS in their last five games following an SU loss, 1-5 ATS in their last half-dozen games overall, 1-6-1 ATS in their last eight road games and a stunning 1-8 ATS in their last nine games against their ACC conference rivals. Conversely, Louisville is 4-0 ATS in their last four games following an ATS loss, 5-1 ATS in their last six home games against a team with a losing road record and 10-4-1 ATS in their last 15 home games. I know the Blue Devils are 3-1-1 ATS in the last five meetings against Louisville, but they’re also 1-2 SU on the road this season, making them my pick to go down for the second time this week.

My final score prediction is Louisville 74 Duke 69