No. 7 Duke (23-5, 13-4) at Virginia (20-7, 12-5)

6 p.m., ESPN

After winning yet another nail biter on Wednesday night at Blacksburg, the Cavaliers prepare for one of their biggest games of the season with the Blue Devils coming to town.

Last year the two teams were the class of the conference, with UVa finishing the regular season on top and Duke winning the ACC Tournament. Both matchups between the two were competitive, but ultimately Zion Williamson was a bit too much for the Hoos to handle as Duke swept the season series.

Virginia comes into tomorrow’s contest winners of five straight, while the Blue Devils are limping in, at least to some extent. Duke has lost two of its last three, with setbacks at NC State and Wake Forest being somewhat strange and surprising in their own way. The Devils were blown out in Raleigh, losing by 22, and after hammering Virginia Tech at home then dropped a double-overtime contest against a 12-15 Wake team.

Duke has a history of bouncing back and playing well after upset losses, but the team has struggled a bit on the road of late even in the games that should have been wins.

Duke enters the contest ranked No. 5 in KenPom, the highest-ranked team that UVa has played this season. The Blue Devils are efficient on both ends of the floor in 2020, as they often are. Their offense ranks ninth nationally in efficiency and the defense is solid as well at 14th.

On offense, Duke doesn’t have a lot of obvious flaws and is strong in so many areas. The Blue Devils shoot the ball reasonably well, making 35.1 percent of their 3-point tries, and 53.3 percent of their twos. They have an athletic front line that does a great job on the offensive glass, ranking 19th nationally in offensive rebounding percentage. They do a lot of their damage around the rim and are near the bottom nationally in 3-point attempts to total field goal attempts ratio. Some 56 percent of their points come on made two-pointers, with just 25.5 percent of their points coming on made 3s.

The Blue Devils play at a fast pace, and if they do have a weakness on offense it’s giving away live-ball turnovers. Duke’s steal rate on offense is the one area where the Devils have really struggled, ranking 277th nationally with 9.9 percent of possessions resulting in a takeaway.

On defense, they have a lot of strengths and not many glaring weaknesses. They are in the top 50 nationally in virtually every category, including opponent field goal percentages, block rate, and steal rate, among others. Opponents don’t take many 3s against Duke, with just 27 percent of their attempts from beyond the arc. And while Duke has a few too many live-ball turnovers at times, the Devils don’t force many non-live ball turnovers either. Their opponents are often lured into a run-and-gun game, and Saturday’s contest will be much slower than the pace that Duke is used to.

Opponents average 16.6 seconds per offensive possession, while UVa takes 21.1 seconds per trip, with only one team, Liberty, holding the ball longer than that.

As always, Duke has a very different roster than the one UVa faced last year, with a group of one-and-dones moving on to the NBA and a new crop coming in behind them.

But the Blue Devils do have a few returners, headlined by point guard Tre Jones. The likely frontrunner for ACC Player of the Year, he decided to come back for his sophomore year and has been the lynchpin for this young roster. Averaging 16.1 points and 6.5 assists per game, he is an excellent distributor and defender, with an offensive game that has come a long way since his freshman season.

Duke also gets contributions from veterans Alex O’Connell, Joey Baker, Jordan Goldwire, and Javin DeLaurier, but just as with last season, the returnees often are playing supporting roles around a cast of talented freshmen.

This freshman group is headlined by center Vernon Carey, who is the team’s top scorer at 17.6 points per game. The 6-foot-10 rookie has posted 13 double-doubles on the year, including one last week at NC State when he finished with 27 points and 12 boards. Carey is a tough matchup for any team and it will be interesting to see how Virginia’s pack-line defense, particularly Mamadi Diakite, fair against the talented big man. Fellow freshmen Cassius Stanley, Matthew Hurt, and Wendell Moore are also significant contributors in their first seasons of college basketball. Stanley and Hurt are among the team’s top shooters while Moore does more of his damage around the rim. The three of them are combining for 32.6 points and 13 rebounds per contest.