Duke Basketball: 2019-20 keys to bounce-back home win over Louisville

1. Have a Bench Presence

Duke’s biggest problem in their two losses so far this season has been their lack of a bench presence. Between their two losses, Duke’s bench players have combined for only 20 total points.

In two games, 20 points from your bench is not nearly enough and a large reason they lost each of these games is because of their lack of bench help. To put that into perspective, in Duke’s two ranked wins its bench combined for a total of 42 points.

To be fair, against Clemson Duke was playing without two of their best players in Wendell Moore and Joey Baker, which hurt Duke quite a bit considering the two of them combine for an average of 13.9 points per game.

Wendell Moore will miss yet another game when Duke plays Louisville as he continues to recover from surgery to repair a broken bone in his right hand, but there is still no word on Joey Baker.

Baker missed his first game of the season on Tuesday when Duke played Clemson, due to an ankle sprain he sustained during practice. If Baker plays, it would be a huge lift for the Blue Devils as they would be able to add a ninth player back into the rotation.

Against Clemson, four of the five starters totaled at least 29 minutes with the lone exception being Matthew Hurt who played only 15 minutes. When you have at least four guys playing 29 minutes, you’re going to have a very tired and worn out team and that was the case on Tuesday night.

That being said, if Baker is out once again, I would expect to see players such as Justin Robinson get a couple more minutes than he typically does.

Having a bench that is capable of lifting your team up when needed is key and with Duke this season, it hasn’t been a problem, but against Clemson and SFA, it was a huge problem.

Duke’s bench will be a major factor in determining the outcome of Saturday’s game and it will undoubtedly be important for Duke to beat Louisville.