Philadelphia – Before the season even began, Creighton head coach Greg McDermott made it clear that the Bluejays had their sights set on the Sweet 16. The Jays fell short a year ago when they lost to the University of North Carolin Tar Heels  in the third round of the NCAA Tournament. Now, after knocking of the University of Cincinnati Bearcats on Friday, the Jays will have another chance to break through against the Duke University Blue Devils, the Midwest Region’s No. 2 seed.

“We played Carolina in this game last year, obviously didn’t play on of our better games of the season, and we’ve kind of worked all summer, fall to get back to this game, to get back to this opportunity to play against one of the nation’s elite, and the opportunity is here,” senior guard Grant Gibbs said. “We’re going to be well prepared and hopefully go after it.”

Duke truly is one of the nation’s elite. The school is sitting on 1,999 wins as a program. The Blue Devils are 28-5 this season, but they are 19-1 with senior forward Ryan Kelly healthy and in the line-up. They have wins over the University of Kentucky, the University of Louisville, Ohio State University and the University of Miami when all four schools were ranked in the top 5 of the AP poll, and they have been ranked No. 1 themselves multiple times. Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski is the all-time leader in career coaching wins in Division I men’s basketball. Duke is the best team Creighton has seen all year.

Senior forward Ryan Kelly leads the Blue Devils with 17.4 points and 10.2 rebounds per game. The 6-foot-11, 245-pound big man was dominant in Duke’s second round win against the University at Albany with 23 points on 9-11 shooting and eight rebounds. Senior center Gregory Echenique will draw the primary assignment on Plumlee.

“I think it’s going to be a good match,” Echenique said. “I’m looking forward to it. We watched some film on him an he’s obviously very athletic, very skilled … hopefully the refs will let us play and give me an opportunity to just go one-on-one on him.”

As good as Plumlee was against Albany, it was senior guard Seth Curry that set the tone for the Blue Devils. The 6-foot-2 sharpshooter scored a game-high 26 points on 10-14 shooting, and is second on the team in scoring an 3-point shooting at 17.3 per game and 43.6 percent. Junior guard Jahenns Manigat will be tasked with chasing Curry around the multitude of screens Duke will set for him and will have to prevent Curry from getting open looks on the perimeter.

“Defensively, [Manigat] brings energy to us every game, and he’s good at chasing guys off screens, making their catches difficult, and he will be tested [against Duke] as much as he has at any time this year,” Creighton head coach Greg McDermott said. “Curry is on the move a lot, he uses screens, he reads situations very well and generally he’s going to make you pay for every mistake you make.”

Sophomore point guard Quinn Cook did not shoot very well for Duke against Albany (2-8 field goals), but he routinely got into the paint and collapsed the Great Danes defense en route to racking up 11 assists with only one turnover. Creighton’s own sophomore point guard Austin Chatman is going to have to stay in front of Cook and keep him out of the lane, in addition to putting some pressure on him on the other end.

Gibbs is the man that makes the Creighton offense go, and Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski is well aware of that fact. Duke freshman guard Rasheed Sulaimon will draw the primary assignment on Gibbs according to Krzyzewski, and who wins that match-up could go a long way toward determining the winner.

“[Sulaimon] has an important assignment tomorrow. He has Gibbs,” Krzyzewski said. “And Gibbs is their best playmaker … he’s their leading assist guy, and I think he’s a fifth year senior … So Rasheed is going to cover an old, older, really smart, savvy basketball player [on Sunday], and how he defends him will have a big bearing on the game.”

However, the marquee match-up in this game is undoubtedly between Duke senior forward Ryan Kelly and Creighton All-American junior forward Doug McDermott. The Duke players and coaches have plenty of respect for McDermott and his scoring prowess.

“Clearly he’s one of the best scores in the country if not the best, does it inside and out, can shoot the ball, good post moves and he’s constantly in motion,” Kelly said. “They set a lot of screens for him to get his shots and get in positions he likes. So we’re just going to have to battle him. It’s going to be five players on the court that are going to have to defend him, and we’ll be ready.”

Krzyzewski went even further with his praise for the Bluejay star.

“McDermott is such a beautiful player,” Krzyzewski said. “He’s really one of the best offensive players I’ve seen in the last decade in college basketball.”

McDermott has plenty of respect for Kelly as well, as the two roomed together at the Amar’e Stoudemire Skills camp during the summer.

“Kelly is one of the most skilled players in the country,” McDermott said. “I got a chance to see him this summer. He’s really good [in the] pick and pop … We’re going to have our hands full but we’re going to be ready.”

Both teams used short rotations in their second round games, with junior guard Tyler Thornton and junior forward Josh Hairston being the only two players to see double-digit minutes off the bench. Thronton scored five points and Hairston went scoreless against Albany, and the Duke bench players combined for roughly 10 points per game throughout the season.

Creighton only played one bench player more than five minutes, but that player was junior forward than Wragge, who shot 4-5 from deep against Albany and averages almost eight points per game by himself.

Sophomore guard Avery Dingman only saw five minutes of court time and sophomore center Will Artino didn’t even play, but both were steady parts of the Jays’ regular season rotation and should be ready to step up if called upon.

“[This game] is a huge opportunity for our program … ever since we lost to Carlina we’ve been working for this moment, and we’re finally here,” Doug McDermott said. “So we’re really excited about it. It’s come really fast, but we’re ready for it and definitely excited to get out there and play them.”

The Jays will play in the final game of the third round, and tip-off is tentatively set for 8:40 p.m., or 30 minutes after the conclusion of the game between Florida Gulf Coast University and San Diego State University. The game will be shown on TBS and Kevin Harlan, Reggie Miller, Len Elmore and Lewis Johnson will be on the call.