Duke has a bit of a history with Rick Pitino. Most obviously, Duke beat his very gutty 1992 Kentucky team that forced overtime in the Elite Eight, which led to Christian Laettner’s iconic shot and a legendary 104-103 win.
That’s not the only time that Pitino encountered Duke.
In 2012, Duke and Louisville played in the Bahamas, with Duke winning, 76-71. In 2013, Louisville beat Duke in the Elite Eight, a game that saw Kevin Ware suffer one of the most gruesome injuries ever seen in a basketball game.
What we remember is Tyler Thornton being completely (and understandably) freaked out. If you feel a need to see it, go ahead. But you’ll have to sign in to YouTube because it’s pretty graphic. Be forewarned (he made a full recovery, thankfully).
Duke won at Louisville in 2015, then again in 2016 at home. Louisville won a couple of weeks later in the Yum! Center.
Pitino and Louisville beat Duke in 2017 at home, then lost to the Blue Devils in the ACC Tournament that year.
After St. John’s win over Kansas last weekend, Pitino got to his press conference and quickly mentioned the ‘92 game and how he’d still like some vengeance. That was 34 years ago. Some games leave marks, and that one did.
But if you listen to your Inner K™, you’ll know that Pitino is thinking about failure, and that’s not necessarily a recipe for success today.
And today, Pitino has a formidable team.
On January 3rd, St. John’s lost to weak Providence and was a middling 9-5. The Johnnies have lost just once since then, a 72-40 beatdown at the hands of UConn (they paid them back for that with a 72-52 pounding in the Big East tournament).
After the win over Kansas, St. John’s is now 30-6. Obviously, that’s a huge turnaround.
That’s against a Big East that’s pretty down, though, with only three tournament teams. How did the Johnnies do otherwise?
Earlier, they lost to Alabama, 103-96, to Iowa State, 83-82, to Auburn, 85-74, to Kentucky, 78-66, and to Providence, 77-71.
Alabama and Iowa State went on to great seasons, but Auburn finished 19-16 and 11th in the SEC, Kentucky finished 22-14 and 7th in the SEC, and PC finished 15-18.
Providence was the second game in conference play, which was diminished from normal Big East standards.
After the three tournament teams – St. John’s, UConn, and Villanova – only Seton Hall won more than 16 games.
We mention it because you have to factor that into the winning streak. Their last 10 games were against Providence (15-18), a 10-point win, Marquette (12-20), a 6-point win, Creighton (15-17), a 29-point win, UConn (31-5), a 29-point loss, Villanova (24-9), a 32-point win, Georgetown (16-18), a 3-point win, Seton Hall (21-12), a 7-point win, Providence again, a 7-point win, Seton Hall again, a 10-point win, and UConn again, the 20-point win.
The last three were in the Big East tournament.
Then the Johnnies hammered Northern Iowa by 26 and nipped Kansas, 67-65 on Dylan Darling’s celebrated layup at the buzzer.
Pitino starts Darling, a 6-1 junior, Dillon Mitchell, a 6-8/210 lb. senior, Zuby Ejiofor, a 6-9/245 lb. senior, Bryce Hopkins, a 6-7/225 lb. senior, and Oziyah Sellers, a 6-5 senior whom Duke fans may remember from Stanford.
As you’d expect from a Pitino-coached team, St. John’s is really good defensively. Their adjusted defensive efficiency is 93.5, 8th in the country. With Ejiofor, Mitchell, and Hopkins, the interior defense is pretty rugged.
Pitino’s defenses have always been aggressive and thrived off of turnovers. That could be a problem with Caleb Foster still out. We’ve mentioned recently that while Cameron Boozer has had a superb freshman year for Duke, he has had a surprising struggle with turnovers.
Since the ACC Tournament, Boozer had 5 against Florida State, 4 against Clemson, 3 against Virginia, 5 against Siena, and 5 against TCU. That could be an issue against St. John’s, and Pitino’s teams have traditionally loved creating chaos.
But in games where St. John’s has struggled, they’ve given up a lot of points in the paint, and they’ve also struggled on the boards in losses. Duke has generally rebounded well this year.
St. John’s also hasn’t generally shot threes very well, hitting 33.2% from deep, good for just 218th nationally.
They only get 26% of their points from behind the line, which is a bit of a change for Pitino, who pioneered three-point attacks while at Providence.
Their inside-oriented attack underscores the importance of Patrick Ngongba, who adds an extra element of defense around the basket and takes pressure off of Cameron Boozer on both ends.
Through this season, we’ve seen Duke show a knack for keeping teams from scoring deep into the shot clock, then chucking up shots at the end of it. If they can force the Johnnies to do that, and better still, to fire up threes late in the shot clock, that’s going to help a lot.
It’ll also help a lot if Duke hits some. Isaiah Evans is always capable of a hot streak, and Boozer, Dame Sarr, and Nik Khamenia have also added a lot there as well. Cayden Boozer hit them occasionally, as well as Cameron, who is an excellent outside shooter. Someone will have to stick to him out there or risk getting crucified from deep.
Basically, this is what Duke will need to do to win this game: limit fouls, hang on to the ball, play really good defense, force the Johnnies away from the basket, and control the misses.
It sounds like a lot when you put it that way, but reverse it and look at what St. John’s has to do to win: turn Duke over, defend inside against Cameron Boozer, Ngongba, and Maliq Brown, keep all the Blue Devils off the board, and last but not least, overcome Duke’s elite defense.
That defense buckled a bit without Ngongba and Caleb Foster, but Ngongba returned against TCU, and Cayden Boozer has really come on since Foster went down.
What we love about that guy is his propensity to make winning plays at the right time. In the classic phrase, it’s something you can’t teach.
Finally, one last point: it took a little while to get this working, but Sarr is an absolute pit bull against a ballhandler, and against a smaller point guard, he’s been just devastatingly effective. Imagine if the 6-8 Sarr had defended Darling on that beautiful, game-winning drive he made against Kansas. It would have been much more difficult.
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