There’s no time for a hangover in March, so the party following Alabama’s outburst against BYU was short.

Those 25 made 3s and 113 points scored Thursday night on BYU don’t carry over to Saturday.

And Duke won’t be intimidated by those NCAA tournament records when they meet at 7:49 p.m. CT Saturday for a spot in the Final Four.

Alabama (28-8) is a 6.5-point underdog to the top-seeded Blue Devils coming off quite possibly the program’s greatest offensive performance. That’s not stunning for a few reasons.

Duke is 34-3 and has lost just once since the end of November.

They’re deep.

They’re long.

And the Blue Devils are stacked with NBA talent including the favorite to win national player of the year, Cooper Flagg.

While true, it emerged from the weakest ACC possibly ever, this is a quintessential Duke team. This blue blood has been to just one Final Four (2022) since winning its most recent national title in 2015.

So, what’s it going to take to beat this giant for Alabama to make its second straight trip to the Final Four?

It will require overcoming a team that’s No. 1 in adjusted offensive efficiency and No. 5 defensively.

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Each of the three teams that beat Duke earlier in the season took a different route. First, Kentucky and Kansas beat them in November neutral-site games in thrillers. Clemson’s 77-71 win over the Blue Devils occurred on Feb. 8, and they’ve won 14 straight since.

A few notes on what those three did to beat Duke:

— Kentucky held Duke to 39.4% shooting (28-for-71) while the Blue Devils shot a season-low 16.7% from the 3-point line (4-for-24).

— Clemson kept Duke off the foul line as the 11 made free throws (on 14 attempts) were the seventh fewest of the season.

— Kansas and Clemson limited opportunities as the Blue Devils took just 48 shots against the Jayhawks and 55 at Clemson. For context, Alabama shot at least 50 times from 3-point range twice in games this season.

— Of the three, only Kentucky made double-figure 3-point shots as Clemson won, shooting just 4-for-10.

— Duke has one of the lowest turnover rates in the nation, but all three who beat them forced at least 10. The loss to Kansas involved a season-high 16.

— Kansas had the best solution to the Flagg issue. The Jayhawks ran double teams at the freshman phenom, as he took just nine shots all night. This 13-point total was the fewest in any game in which he played at least 30 minutes. And Flagg was in for 38 that night. He committed five turnovers.

Otherwise, it’s been a dream season for the Blue Devils.

Its KenPom strength of schedule ranks just 57th overall (Alabama is No. 1), but the non-conference slate was 21st. That includes a home win over No. 1 overall seed Auburn.

The Blue Devils’ 21.1-point average margin of victory leads the nation and by a margin of nearly five points over No. 2 Gonzaga.

They don’t have a rotation player shorter than 6-foot-6 while center Khaman Maluach is 7-2 with a 9-foot-8 wingspan. According to KenPom, Duke is the tallest team in the nation with an average height of 79.8 inches (compared to No. 61 Alabama at 78.1 inches).

That complicates matters for an Alabama offense that either likes to shoot at the rim or from beyond the arc.

That Duke length limited opponents to 43.2% shooting on 2-point shots — the second lowest percentage in the nation, according to KenPom. They were only slightly better on 3s with a 31.0% success rate to rank 36th.

Blue Devil opponents’ effective field goal percentage was 44.4% or dead last in the nation.

Bottom line: Duke actually plays the defense that BYU only mimicked.

The Crimson Tide will have to get creative creating space for both types of shots it desires. Duke won’t be going under ball screens like BYU infamously did en route to a record-breaking 3-point shooting performance.

“They’re obviously a really good offensive team,” Duke’s Sion James said Friday of Alabama, “but we’ve gotten to this point being ourselves, and we’re not going to stop it for Alabama or anybody else.”

That said, Alabama’s likely going to need another solid perimeter shooting night. It would be unreasonable to expect a repeat considering Duke’s defense but if it can work the inside-out game with guards getting paint touches, the spacing can open up shooters.

“When people ask me how many 3s do you want to get up, well, it depends on how you want to guard us,” Nate Oats said Friday. “If you’re going to guard us and not let us in the paint, let’s get 51. If you want to completely run us off the line, build off every drive, we’ll try to go score 70, 75 points in the paint.”

How that translates against Duke’s size is the question to be answered.

What’s more clear is the tempo both teams would desire.

Alabama’s also going to want to crank it up since Duke isn’t a fast-paced team like the Tide or like BYU was Thursday. While Alabama has the No. 1 adjusted tempo in KenPom’s rankings, Duke is 264th.

“Part of it’s their defense is pretty good,” Oats said. “Teams take a while to score on them. So the better your defense is, the longer those possessions go. Offensively they’re a little bit more deliberate at times. They want to make sure that they get in the same actions. We’re a little bit more free flowing.”

So a fast-paced game where Alabama gets paint touches with options to shoot or pass to 3-point shooters while smothering the likely national player of the year is the best path to victory.

Simple enough.

Do that and there could be some serious hangovers come Sunday morning.

Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.