Welcome to Louisville, Duke. This is one town in Kentucky that has the utmost respect for your basketball program.
Never mind the Univeristy of Kentucky hate-mongers in our midst. They’re still feeling the pain from the Christian Laetner shot in 1992 that felled their idols in the closing seconds for the East Regional championship. 
What a relief that was for Louisville fans, watching a team coming off two years of probation get sent back to Lexington. That was Rick Pitino’s first season as UK coach, proving he could compete at the highest levels with an assemblage of perceived leftovers and wannabes.
Duke has long been considered by UofL fans to be a premier program, not only in terms of NCAA championships and number of wins, but in the way the program has been managed. Appearing in 15 final fours, 10 national championship games, winning four national titles, most of them during Coach Mike Krzyzewski’s tenure. A clean program, devoid of NCAA probations during Coach K’s 35 seasons.
Duke owns 5-4 edge in meetings between the basketball programs, but Louisville has won four of the last five games — including a 72-69 win in the 1986 championship and an 85-63 regional bracket win en route to a third NCAA championship in 2013.
Great to see two great programs finally coming together, beginning a new chapter in the ACC.
Third national championship came in 2013, having beaten Duke in a regional final.
Acute typo plague strikes again.
I am a Kentucky fan that respects both the U of L and Duke programs. However Charlie, why do you feel it necessary to take a classless shot at UK in every article? UK/U of L is over for this regular season; why can’t you guys move on? It’s not just you trolling, but several Journal sports writers can’t help themselves. You’ve got our old coach, you are doing well. Love yourselves and get over UK being right next door. I can say for a fact, win or lose, once the regular season game is over, we are done with you guys. Before you ask or comment, I’m here because I, like every other basketball fan, am looking forward to this titanic matchup and I just wanted to express my disappointment with every U of L homer sports writer’s inability to praise Louisville without taking a subtle, or not so subtle, shot at Kentucky. I understand silly fans on both sides making silly comments, but it would seem that journalists, and aspiring journalists should have a higher standard. Kentucky has its homers too. Oddly enough they spend more time pick apart UK than they do any of UK’s rivals. It is very interesting.
Every article? A retired journalist, but happy to be just a blogger here, free to express my opinions. Seems to be more than a little antagonism toward Duke from UK fans, at least the ones I know. The UofL-UK thing is always present, generating emotion on both sides. It has been a while since UK has been mentioned around here.