With Ngongba back, now there’s real hope Duke could have Foster for the Sweet 16
The top-ranked Duke Blue Devils aren’t whole yet — but they’re getting closer at exactly the right time.
If you watched Duke dismantle TCU 81-58 on Saturday in an NCAA Tournament game at Greenville, South Carolina, you saw something that mattered more than the final score: Pat Ngongba checked in at the 16:14 mark of the first half, and the Blue Devils faithful inside Bon Secours Wellness Arena rose for a standing ovation. The 6-11 sophomore center was back in uniform, back on the floor, and back in the rotation after missing five straight games with a sore right foot.
And now, there’s a real possibility Duke could get Caleb Foster back too.
Foster timeline is accelerated
Jon Scheyer went on the InsideCollegeBasketballNow podcast with Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports on Monday, and the Duke coach sounded genuinely optimistic about Foster’s return.
“When he first got hurt I thought there was like, one in a million,” Scheyer said. “Since then, the chances have continued to increase. I even think there’s an outside chance, maybe for Friday. I know in Caleb’s mind it was last Friday. He’s trying to do the impossible here and come back as soon as he can.”
Let that sink in. Foster broke a bone in his right foot during the UNC game on March 7. He had surgery the next day — March 8 — for a foot fracture. The original timeline had him possibly returning if Duke reached the Final Four, April 4-6 in Indianapolis. Now Scheyer is floating a Friday possibility. That’s the Sweet 16.
The Blue Devils, the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA field, face fifth-seeded St. John’s at 7:10 p.m. Friday in the East Region semifinals at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C. The other semifinal matches Michigan State and Connecticut, with the regional final set Sunday.
“Caleb’s working every day like crazy,” Scheyer said.
On Saturday, Foster was on the bench celebrating the TCU blowout with his teammates, bearing weight on the right foot regularly — a notable detail for anyone tracking his recovery. He’s still in the protective boot, but the trajectory here is unmistakably pointing in the right direction.
Freshman guard Cayden Boozer has filled in well in Foster’s absence, but Foster brings more experience and an added degree of toughness to the lineup. Getting him back for a potential run through Washington would be enormous for this team’s ceiling.
Ngongba’s return: 13 minutes, a line full of fours, jitters didn’t last
Now let’s get into what Ngongba’s comeback actually looked like on Saturday.
He sat on the bench to start the game, same as the previous five. But the differences were obvious. The protective boot he’d been wearing on his sore right foot was gone. His scooter was parked somewhere else in the arena. He’d worked up a sweat going through pregame warmups for the first time since March 7.
Then Ngongba reached down and tightened his right shoe lace, signaling something different. He was ready.
In 13 minutes of action — his most playing time since Duke’s win over N.C. State on March 2 — Ngongba posted a symmetrical stat line: four points, four rebounds, four assists, four turnovers and four fouls. He also blocked a shot.
Was it clean? No. The rust was real. But Ngongba acknowledged the nerves faded fast.
“It felt good,” Ngongba said. “I mean, I feel like, once I got to the (scorer’s) table, and then once I was moving out there, I was, like, ‘ah,’ and they were pretty much out the door.”
Getting to this point wasn’t simple. Scheyer made clear just how hard Ngongba had to fight his way back for the second-round matchup with No. 9 seed TCU. This had been the plan all along, but that didn’t mean it came easily.
“For Pat to come back to this game was not easy by any means,” Scheyer said. “He was fighting like crazy. He even came up to us before the first game, and just in the best interest of him, and ultimately our team also — well, we always want him back out here, but we tried to get him ready for this game.”
What Ngongba’s return means for Brown and the rotation
Here’s where the rotation implications get interesting for Friday and beyond.
Maliq Brown remained Duke’s starting center against TCU, just as he’s been the previous five games. And Brown delivered his best offensive game in weeks: 12 points and nine rebounds, his first double-figure scoring game since he scored 15 against UNC on March 7.
Brown was candid about what having Ngongba back — even off the bench — did for his own mindset.
“Just his presence on the court,” Brown said. “Just, even when I’m looking over at the bench, I just see him over there. We talked about it this morning, you know, just knowing he was gonna be able to play today. It just, it took a lot of load off everybody.”
The front-line depth was a genuine concern heading into the tournament. Brown handled the increased workload admirably, but Duke without Ngongba was asking a lot of its big man. Now there’s a real rotation option at center — and that changes everything about how Scheyer can manage minutes in a Sweet 16 and potential Elite Eight that could come within 48 hours of each other.
Cameron Boozer’s reaction says it all
Duke All-American Cameron Boozer captured the mood of the locker room when he talked about seeing Ngongba back on the floor.
“He gave us a lot of juice coming back,” Cam Boozer said. “Even just walking through. To see him out there, we all got happy, ecstatic. I almost started jumping around and stuff, just because we know how hard he works and we know how much he means to the team. We’re just super happy to have him back for sure.”
The road ahead through Washington
Scheyer summed it up honestly: the Blue Devils are “more whole with Pat being back” but they aren’t all the way there yet.
Duke kept winning over the past two weeks while two starters sat with foot injuries. The Blue Devils toppled rival North Carolina on March 7, the day Ngongba went through warmups but didn’t play — he even sat on the bench wearing the protective boot in the second half. That’s also the day Foster went down.
From there, Duke won an ACC championship in Charlotte with both players sidelined and edged Siena, 71-65, in Thursday’s NCAA Tournament opener in Greenville before blowing out TCU.
Now the bracket narrows. A game with No. 5 seed St. John’s is up next Friday at 7:10 p.m.. No. 3 seed Michigan State and either No. 2 seed UConn or No. 7 seed UCLA will join them on the other side of the regional bracket. To reach the Final Four, Duke needs to win both the Friday semifinal and Sunday’s regional final.
Duke isn’t all the way healthy. But with Ngongba back in the rotation and Foster’s return timeline suddenly accelerating, the No. 1 overall seed added an important piece on Saturday — and might be about to add another when it matters most.
This story was originally published March 24, 2026 at 6:00 AM.
