WASHINGTON, DC — There were 15 minutes left in regulation, and for one of the few times all season, Duke was in serious trouble.
With a spot in the Elite Eight on the line Friday night, top-seeded Duke trailed No. 5 seed St. John’s 55-45 at Capital One Arena. Momentum had swung to the Johnnies, and the building was fully behind them.
The Blue Devils desperately needed a spark, a hero, someone to step up and save their season before it slipped away.
How about the guy with the broken foot?
For the next three minutes, 6-foot-4 junior guard Caleb Foster, who suffered a fracture in his right foot just 20 days ago, took over. He scored Duke’s next seven points, then hit 6-foot-9 freshman forward Cameron Boozer out of a pick-and-roll for an easy layup. The Blue Devils stabilized and went blow-for-blow with the Red Storm the rest of the way, eventually pulling away to secure the 80-75 win and set up a meeting with UConn on Sunday.
Foster finished with 11 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists and zero turnovers in 19 minutes. It was his first taste of five-on-five action since he went down March 7.
“He had no business playing tonight,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said. “Ninety-nine percent of guys do not come back to play under the circumstances of what’s happened to him. It was incredible the way he willed us. There are no stats that can measure how big this dude’s heart is for what he did.”
Foster suffered his injury in Duke’s regular-season finale against North Carolina. He had surgery the following day, and initial reports were that he had an outside chance of returning if the Blue Devils made it to the Final Four. He got to work right away with head athletic trainer Jose Fonseca and Director of High Performance and Sports Science Nick Potter.
“I didn’t know if I was going to be able to bounce back from that, but as soon as the doctor told me that there’s a chance, I just took it and ran with it,” Foster said in a postgame news conference, to which he arrived on a scooter with his foot and ankle wrapped in ice. “That’s where my mindset has been.”
Foster’s optimism was admirable, but in the eyes of many also foolish. The idea that he would be able to return this season seemed outlandish, even if Duke was able to get to Indianapolis in his absence.
“When he first broke it, he said, ‘I’ll be back in three weeks,’” Duke associate head coach Chris Carrawell told Hoops HQ after the win, still shaking his head at what Foster had done. “He won us the game. They’re a tough matchup for us because of the pressure they put on. If we didn’t have him tonight, we would’ve lost.”
Indeed, St. John’s gave Duke all it could handle. Understandably, there was a lot of skepticism that the Red Storm had the offensive firepower to hang with the Blue Devils. Coach Rick Pitino’s team entered the night having won 21 of its past 22, but many of those were rock fights, including its 67-65 Round of 32 triumph over Kansas. The Johnnies couldn’t afford an off-night against a powerhouse like Duke, which ranks in the top 10 in both offensive and defensive efficiency per KenPom. Pitino was adamant that St. John’s had to win the three-point battle to have a chance, and his players responded.
The Red Storm knocked down 9-of-14 shots from behind the arc in the first half — an onslaught that included 6-foot-8 senior forward Dillon Mitchell’s first three of the season and a trifecta of threes from 6-foot-11 sophomore forward Ruben Prey — to take a 40-39 lead into the break.
Behind their hot shooting and patented pressure defense, which forced Duke into three turnovers early in the second half, the Johnnies seized a 55-45 advantage at the 15:01 mark and seemed on their way to pulling off the upset.
Then Foster took over.
He hit two layups, a 7-foot jumper and a free throw to stop the bleeding. He handled St. John’s press with poise and prevented the Blue Devils from spiraling. “They got up 10, and we were struggling,” Carrawell said. “Those plays saved our season.”
Both Boozer and 6-foot-6 sophomore wing Isaiah Evans pointed to that pivotal stretch as the moment they knew their point guard was back. Scheyer was only planning to play him 8-10 minutes, but Foster was too good to take off the floor, surpassing everyone’s expectations. “This was insane,” Carrawell said. “God is good, man, because for him to be playing is unbelievable. It’s unbelievable.”
After Foster’s outburst, the Blue Devils regained their composure. They switched to a matchup zone, slowing St. John’s surprisingly potent offense, and Boozer and Evans came alive. Boozer was quiet in the first half but imposed his will down the stretch, matching the physicality of the Johnnies and controlling the paint. By the end, the freshman phenom had registered another monster stat line: 22 points, 10 rebounds, 3 assists.
Evans hit big shot after big shot, scoring a game-high 25 points. With the Blue Devils down 69-67 with under four minutes remaining, Evans nailed his fourth three-pointer of the contest, turned to face the crowd and hollered, “I’m too cold!”
But as fate would have it, Duke’s final two field goals of the night came from the hobbled Foster: a pull-up midrange jumper and another driving layup. St. John’s last-second attempt to tie the game on Dylan Darling’s deep three was off the mark, and Foster and the Blue Devils were wheeling on to the Elite Eight.
“I’ve been driving fast on a scooter for about two weeks every day, just trying to be present, and then just a lot of recovery, going early mornings and late nights with Jose and Nick,” Foster said. “Credit to them for willing me back and giving me an opportunity to come back and play.”
“He worked his butt off to be able to get to this point,” 6-foot-11 sophomore center Patrick Ngongba said. “And you saw the results.”
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