WASHINGTON \u2014 For all the bludgeoning and shoving and de facto human car crashes, St. John\u2019s and Duke put on a hell of a basketball game.<\/p>\n
Just not the one expected, as the top-seeded Blue Devils dug in and found a way to win 80-75 to advance to the program\u2019s third straight Elite Eight.<\/p>\n
What was billed as a defensive slugfest for the ages, a rough-and-tumble rock fight, instead became a high-stakes shooting affair from practically the opening tip, turning Friday\u2019s East Regional opener inside Capital One Arena into an all-time Sweet 16 classic. It was punch, counterpunch and haymaker for 40 straight minutes, with as high-level ball as you\u2019d expect from the products of two of college basketball\u2019s best coaches.<\/p>\n
Case in point, though, for how dramatic these offenses were? Rick Pitino\u2019s Red Storm had made only nine 3s in a game 10 times this season but drained nine in the first half alone, and 13 overall, to give Duke just about all it could handle.<\/p>\n
Despite trailing by one at the half and by 10 shortly thereafter, Jon Scheyer\u2019s Blue Devils, as they have all season, refused to go away.<\/p>\n
With the victory, Duke \u2014 which dealt Pitino his second loss ever in the regional semifinal \u2014 moved to 8-2 this season in two-possession games, showcasing a rare level of poise for such a young team.<\/p>\n
And, stunningly, the player who turned around Duke\u2019s fortunes \u2014 who picked his team up off the mat once it fell behind by 10, its largest deficit all night \u2014 was the one least likely to play in this game at all: Caleb Foster. The junior guard broke his right foot on March 7 in the Blue Devils\u2019 regular-season finale against rival UNC. But Foster committed to returning for the NCAA Tournament \u2014 and thank goodness for Duke that he did, as his seven straight second-half points almost single-handedly saved the Blue Devils\u2019 season.<\/p>\n
Foster helped put the finishing touches on the game, too, with a beautiful midrange teardrop with 2:14 left that put Duke up 6. That gave him 11 points, in one of the most miraculous returns in recent college hoops memory.<\/p>\n
Between Foster\u2019s one-of-one effort and the return of Duke\u2019s \u201cmutant\u201d matchup zone \u2014 which it first unveiled in its comeback against No. 16 Siena in the first round \u2014 the Blue Devils finally got St. John\u2019s out of whack offensively, and steadily clawed back in from teetering on the brink.<\/p>\n
Other than Foster, no one was more key to that effort than sophomore guard Isaiah Evans, who finished with a team-high 25 points on 10-of-15 shooting and whose individual shot-creation proved to be the second-half difference. Nobody better summed up Evans\u2019 efforts than the sharpshooter himself; after his stepback 3 with 3:54 left, that put Duke up one down the stretch, the 6-foot-6 guard turned to the CBS crew \u2014 including Duke legend Grant Hill \u2014 and said what the millions of viewers watching him had to be thinking:<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m too cold.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was only fitting, then, that Evans was the one to all-but seal Duke\u2019s victory with 11.2 seconds left. He missed the first of two free throws, but calmly drained the second to put the Blue Devils up three.<\/p>\n
Which was all the margin they needed. Cam Boozer\u2019s follow-up free throws with 1.2 seconds left only solidified the result \u2014 and gave Duke, for the only time all night, a second of space to breathe.<\/p>\n
Dylan Darling had a decent 3-point look with four seconds left that would\u2019ve seen the beleaguered point guard play hero for the second straight postseason game, but he barely hit the front of the rim, effectively running out the clock on the Johnnies\u2019 incredible season.<\/p>\n
Despite the Red Storm\u2019s best, Pitino\u2019s team simply did not have the individual scorers needed \u2014 outside of backup Ruben Prey, who hit a career-high four 3s \u2014 to deny Duke in the end. Big East Player of the Year Zuby Ejiofor did his best, scoring 10 of his team-high 17 points in the second half \u2014 including one free throw with 14.7 seconds left \u2014 but ultimately saw his incredible Big East career come to a heartbreaking end.<\/p>\n
A brawl of a basketball game, yes. But a beaut, too.<\/p>\n
And one that confirmed why, at full strength, Duke has more than enough to win the whole thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 For all the bludgeoning and shoving and de facto human car crashes, St. John\u2019s and Duke…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":687807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1372,1385,62,1378,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-687806","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-duke-blue-devils","9":"tag-mens-college-basketball","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-st-johns-red-storm","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116306675599782362","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=687806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/687807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}