Duke is not ready to pack up and call it a season. Instead, after a blowout victory over Boston College in round one, and an equally impressive, 70-56, win over Louisville on Wednesday, this team appears driven to shock the league.

Whether that comes to fruition or not is another story, but the first step in making it happen, is believing it can be accomplished.

And for a Duke team that has taken a hit to its confidence level a number of times this season, that is a really good sign.

As for Wednesday’s win over Louisville, aside from a three and a half minute stretch at the end of the first half, and to a lesser degree between the 13 and 10 minute marks of the opening half, Duke outplayed the Cardinals in every facet.

“We lost to that team twice in the regular season and that feeling hurt,” Mark Williams said. “And to come out today and play the way that we did, it was fun to play.”

For much of the season, Duke’s success, or lack thereof, has correlated with how the team started and ended each half. While that seems like an obvious statement, one that blankets all of college hoops, it’s worth noting with this team.

Duke has played, for the most part, strong basketball between the beginning and ends of halves. It’s the anchor points on either side that things have been up in the air. It’s been difficult to judge how Duke will respond in certain sets of circumstances.

It’s never been consistent this season - good or bad.

Tonight’s game provided the ultimate test. While holding a 14 point lead with 4:06 remaining in the opening half, Duke appeared poised to blow the game wide open, as it did against a lesser Boston College squad.

Louisville, though, had other plans and responded with a 16-0 run. It was like Duke was mentally breaking down right in front of everyone’s eyes. Carlik Jones and Samuell Williamson spearheaded the Cardinals’ resuscitation - on both ends of the floor.

Duke’s offensive execution unraveled, and it appeared as if the Cardinals were going to take momentum into the locker room and come out in the second half and wreck the Blue Devils.

But that didn’t happen, at least for more than a brief moment.

“Basketball is a game of runs,” Matthew Hurt, who scored 13 first half points on 5-of-9 shooting, said. “We just couldn’t let it rattle us. Under four timeout, it did. But we regrouped at halftime, we just tried to play hard an execute on offense.”

Duke’s offense was a mess during that stretch, as the Blue Devils missed five straight shots, turned the ball over once, and was whistled for two fouls. According to Mike Krzyzewski, though, Duke’s half court defense was still pretty good during the stretch.

The fact Duke was missing shots, though, allowed Louisville to get out and run, which resulted in two made 3-pointers in transition.

Instead of crumbling, Duke quelled the Louisville attack and changed the narrative in one quick move.

“At the end of the first half, Jon Scheyer called a really good play and we got Matt a three in the corner,” Krzyzewski said. “That was a big, big play for us.”

Not only did the Hurt 3-pointer put Duke up one, 30-29, to go into the locker room, it allowed the team to hit the reset button at the half and recompose itself.

And did they ever. It took Duke just 2:19 to extend its one point halftime lead to 10. From that point forward, Duke controlled the game.

As a team, the Blue Devils found a flow on both ends of the floor. Aside from a couple bad turnovers, they weren’t doing much wrong.

Williams was a major reason for that. He completely took over the game in the final 20 minutes after posting eight points and nine rebounds in the first half.

The 7-foot-1 freshman owned the glass, pulling down 10 of his career-high 19 rebounds in the final 20 minutes. Additionally, he scored 15 points in the half, giving him 23 on 9-of-14 shooting for the game.

“Mark was fabulous, not good,” Krzyzewski said. “To get 19 rebounds in a game. Those defensive rebounds in the last eight, 10 minutes were the deciding factor in the game.

“He had a great game. An amazing second half. The number of minutes and the physicality of the game, really good players are able to play tired at a high level and he did that tonight. Our team did that. Mark really did that. That was very impressive.”

While Williams was setting the tone and breaking Louisville’s will, Hurt was continuing his strong showing, adding seven more points and finishing with 20 of his own.

Unlike much of the first half, though, Duke’s young guards started to show up on offense. Both DJ Steward and Jeremy Roach scored seven of their nine points in the second half, while Steward added five rebounds and two steals. He finished the game with six rebounds.

Then there was Wendell Moore Jr., who despite having four turnovers, still left his mark, finishing with nine points, seven rebounds and five assists.

In addition to Duke’s strong team offensive effort in the second half, which helped them lead by as many as 17 with just 49 seconds to go in the game, the major story was defense.

Louisville star guards Jones and David Johnson were held in check in the second half. Jones scored just four points in the half, and 13 for the game, but failed to see the ball go through net at all in the final 6:15. Johnson scored seven of his 14 in the second half, but was limited to just five shots.

As a whole, Duke outscored Louisville 40-27 in the second half, and held the Cardinals to just 24% shooting, and 29% from 3-point range.

“Just try to make it tough on their guards,” Hurt said of Duke’s defensive strategy. “They have two really great guards, so try to pack it in, try to make them playmakers, try to make them kick it out to shooters and I think we did that well tonight.”

The plan worked as Louisville took 17 3-pointers in the second half, and 25 for the game. They made just seven.

Duke was switching everything on defense, and daring Louisville to shoot. The wanted to keep Jones and Johnson out of the lane, as Hurt noted.

“One of the first things is to get back and not allow transition, which we did a decent job of,” Krzyzewski said. “Then we just tried to smother the lane. Exaggerated plugs is what we call it. Plug from another guy. You would do that somewhat, but today the defense we played was exaggerated. He still got in there a couple times, but not like he has in the first two games we played against him.”