Why Duke-St. John’s in the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16 brings up old memories
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Duke faces St. John’s in the East Region semifinal (Sweet 16).
- St. John’s brings an eight-game win streak and upset of Kansas.
- Caleb Foster could return as Duke pursues its road to Indy.
Duke had a coach seeking a first national championship and St. John’s a much older, legendary coach when the two teams last faced off in the NCAA Tournament — in 1991.
Mike Krzyzewski was on the Duke bench and colorful Lou Carnesecca the St. John’s coach when the Blue Devils earned a 78-61 win in the Midwest Region final at the Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan.
A week later, Duke won its first NCAA title — in Indianapolis.
Thirty-five years later, it’s Duke and St. John’s again in the NCAA Tournament. Jon Scheyer, who won an NCAA championship as a player under Coach K, is after his first as Duke’s head coach. On the opposing bench will be ageless Rick Pitino, who at 73 is seven years older than Carnesecca in 1991 and has twice won NCAA titles.
The Devils (34-2), the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA field, and fifth-seeded St. John’s (30-6) go at it Friday at 7:10 p.m. in the East Region semifinals at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C. Oddmakers have made Duke an early 6.5-point favorite in the Sweet 16 game.
The other semifinal matches Michigan State and Connecticut in a loaded regional that has two Hall of Fame coaches — Pitino and MSU’s Tom Izzo — and two potential Hall of Famers in Scheyer, given his impressive four-year head coaching start, and UConn’s Dan Hurley, who has two NCAA titles with the Huskies.
Adding intrigue to the Duke-St. John’s game is the possible return of Blue Devils’ guard Caleb Foster, who has been sidelined the past two weeks after foot surgery. Scheyer, in a podcast interview Monday with Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports, said it was possible Foster could be back to face the Red Storm.
“I don’t think I can rule it out because of who he is and how he’s been working,” Scheyer told Rothstein.
A Foster return would be a leading story line in the game, but there are others.
There’s Ian Jackson of St. John’s. A former 5-star recruit out of the Bronx, he played his freshman year at North Carolina under Hubert Davis before transferring after last season.
Jackson played in three games against Duke, losing all three. He was scoreless and ineffective in 10 minutes in their ACC Tournament semifinal game in Charlotte.
Pitino also has an interesting past history with the Blue Devils. His Louisville Cardinals slapped the Devils, 85-63, in the 2013 Midwest regional final during which the Cards’ Kevin Ware suffer a gruesome broken leg. Louisville won the NCAA championship that season, but later had the title vacated by the NCAA for violations.
Pitino’s most memorable NCAA showdown with Duke came as Kentucky’s coach in 1992, when the Devils’ Christian Laettner’s last-second shot in overtime — shown forever by CBS — beat the Wildcats in the East Regional final in Philadelphia.
It didn’t take long for Pitino to bring that up Sunday after St. John’s guard Dylan Darling beat Kansas with a last-second drive and basket — Darling’s only points of the game — to reach the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1999.
“I’m hoping we can get Duke at the buzzer next to make up for that Christian Laettner shot,” Pitino said, smiling.
Pitino also had another thought about going to Capital One Arena: “The fun’s just starting.”
The Red Storm enters the Duke game with an eight-game winning streak that includes a 20-point win over UConn in the Big East Tournament championship game. St. John’s blitzed Northern Iowa in their NCAA opener, then outlasted Kansas for the 67-65 win as 6-9 senior Zuby Ejiofor had 18 points, 9 rebounds and 4 assists.
In the 1991 NCAA game against St. John’s, Duke got 20 points from point guard Bobby Hurley, who also had a team-high 7 rebounds. That caused Krzyzewski to quip: “He had as many rebounds today as he had in the month of January.”
The Blue Devils’ also got 12 points from freshman Grant Hill, who will be working Friday’s game for CBS, as they moved on to a fourth straight Final Four appearance.
The Blue Devils, the No. 1 overall seeds in this year’s NCAAs, have won their past 13 games and closed strongly in the second half of both the Siena and TCU games. Siena, the No. 16 seed, scored 43 first-half points for an 11-point lead but was outscored 39-22 in the second half. Duke’s margin against TCU was 43-24.
Duke freshman Cameron Boozer had a slow start offensively and had some uncharacteristic 5 turnovers Saturday against TCU’s aggressive defense. But he settled in and built a game, finishing with 19 points, 11 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 steals. That came after 22 points and 13 rebounds against Siena.
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Asked after the TCU game if the NCAA Tournament, to this point, had been all that he imagined it to be, Boozer said, “It’s not everything I imagined yet. It’s been a great experience, but we have a lot more to do.”
The road to Indy only gets tougher for Duke, just as many predicted when the NCAA brackets were announced. Duke, St. John’s, Michigan State, UConn. … it’s almost like a Final Four before the Final Four.
“We’re just focused on the next game,” Boozer said. “When you look forward, that’s when things happen. We had it happen a little in the first round (against Siena). You can’t look too far ahead or things can get shaky.
This story was originally published March 24, 2026 at 5:30 AM.
