Top-seeded Duke surges back to survive St. John’s in Sweet 16 heart-stopper

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WASHINGTON — For all the bludgeoning and shoving and de facto human car crashes, St. John’s and Duke put on a hell of a basketball game.

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’s third straight Elite Eight.

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’s 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’d expect from the products of two of college basketball’s best coaches.

Case in point, though, for how dramatic these offenses were? Rick Pitino’s 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.

Despite trailing by one at the half and by 10 shortly thereafter, Jon Scheyer’s Blue Devils, as they have all season, refused to go away.

With the victory, Duke — which dealt Pitino his second loss ever in the regional semifinal — moved to 8-2 this season in two-possession games, showcasing a rare level of poise for such a young team.

And, stunningly, the player who turned around Duke’s fortunes — who picked his team up off the mat once it fell behind by 10, its largest deficit all night — 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’ regular-season finale against rival UNC. But Foster committed to returning for the NCAA Tournament — and thank goodness for Duke that he did, as his seven straight second-half points almost single-handedly saved the Blue Devils’ season.

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.

Between Foster’s one-of-one effort and the return of Duke’s “mutant” matchup zone — which it first unveiled in its comeback against No. 16 Siena in the first round — the Blue Devils finally got St. John’s out of whack offensively, and steadily clawed back in from teetering on the brink.

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’ 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 — including Duke legend Grant Hill — and said what the millions of viewers watching him had to be thinking:

“I’m too cold.”

It was only fitting, then, that Evans was the one to all-but seal Duke’s 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.

Which was all the margin they needed. Cam Boozer’s follow-up free throws with 1.2 seconds left only solidified the result — and gave Duke, for the only time all night, a second of space to breathe.

Dylan Darling had a decent 3-point look with four seconds left that would’ve 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’ incredible season.

Despite the Red Storm’s best, Pitino’s team simply did not have the individual scorers needed — outside of backup Ruben Prey, who hit a career-high four 3s — 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 — including one free throw with 14.7 seconds left — but ultimately saw his incredible Big East career come to a heartbreaking end.

A brawl of a basketball game, yes. But a beaut, too.

And one that confirmed why, at full strength, Duke has more than enough to win the whole thing.

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