It was a game that was worthy of a Final Four, yet it took place in the Sweet 16 between two of the best teams in the sport as top-seeded Duke outlasted St. John’s to advance to the Elite 8 on Sunday.
The Bue Devils outscored the Red Storm 35-20 over the final 14:30 and made 10 of its final 12 shots, which saw eight straight made by the trio of Cameron Boozer, Isaiah Evans, and Caleb Foster, to close the game in the 80-75 victory.
Down by three, 78-75, with 11.2 seconds left, Red Storm point guard Dylan Darling came up woefully short on a game-tying 3-point attempt as Boozer iced the game with free throws with 2.1 seconds left.
The Red Storm took a 10-point lead early in the second half, the largest by either team, behind a 15-1 run after Duke scored the opening five points of the second half to take a 44-40 lead.
St. John’s appeared to take momentum after Dillon Mitchell’s putback dunk off a Bryce Hopkins free throw that gave the Johnnies a two-point lead, 69-67, with 4:21 left but Duke would rattle off an 8-0 run to start to turn the momentum in its favor.
“We were up ten, we could not stop bully drives, bully drives, bully drives, bully drives, and we could not stop it,” Rick Pitino said following the loss.
Boozer, Evans, and Foster scored 38 of Duke’s 41 points in the second half with the only other three points coming on a layup from Nikolas Khamenia and a free throw by Patrick Ngongba.
“We had opportunities down the stretch to be able to come out with the win, but little mistakes here and there with our coverages, and they were able to exploit us with some mismatches and stuff like that,” Zuby Ejiofor explained.
“So, obviously disappointed.”
Foster, who had surgery on his foot 19 days earlier, had not played since suffering the injury on March 7 and his status was in question leading up to the game.
Just making mistakes that you can't have at this time of the year, not listening to Coach,” Dillon Mitchell said of the St. John’s defensive miscues.
“You can't have mistakes like that at this time of the year, and it cost us. It cost us the game. It cost us our season. It's just disappointing.
The Blue Devils started hot, leading 11-4, before the Red Storm finally settled in and punched back. Ruben Prey hit three 3-pointers in the first half, and added another in the second half, to finish with 12 points –- two off his career high.
Duke will play either No. 2 seed UConn or No. 3 Michigan State on Sunday afternoon with a berth in the Final Four on the line.