The #1 team in the country was on the ropes. St. John’s took a 1 point lead into the locker rooms at halftime, and after watching Duke score the first 5 points of the second half, the Red Storm went on a 15-1 run, capped off by a three-pointer by Ruben Prey and a jumper by Ian Jackson.

The Blue Devils found themselves down double digits. Then, as Duke started chipping away, the telecast posted the following stat. Duke is 5-0 this season when they fall behind by 10+ points during the game. And sure enough, Isaiah Evans hit a jumper and a three-pointer to cap off an 18-7 run to give Duke the lead.

The teams would trade off baskets back and forth until about 4 minutes to play when Evans hit a step back three-pointer to give Duke a 70-69 win. After a defensive stop, the Blue Devils got the ball into Cameron Boozer’s hands, and he drives the lane and hits a floater and got fouled. After the free throw, Boozer had given Duke a 4 point lead with 3 to play.

After another missed three-pointer, Duke extended the lead to 6 when he got the ball in the corner, faked a three-pointer to get the defender to fly by him, took a couple dribbles towards the hoop and hit the jumper.

Zuby Ejofor from St. John’s would hit a deep three-pointer from the wing to cut the lead to 3, but Caleb Foster would make a nice drive to the basket after running the shot clock down and then muscle the ball up to the basket for a tough lay-up.

Dylan Darling would miss a three-pointer but Dillon Mitchell got the offensive rebound and kicked it back outside. This time, Ejofor would try the deep shot and miss, but the ball goes out off a Duke player. Finally, after some strong defense, Bryce Hopkins got the ball in the corner, drove the baseline and made a nice reverse layup to cut the lead to 3 points with 52 seconds.

St. John’s would foul Cameron Boozer by holding onto him as he was getting ready to set a screen, but the Duke star missed the front end of the one-and-one, so St. John’s still had a chance. And Zuby Ejofor would get fouled on his drive with 14 seconds to play. Ejofor would only hit one of the free throws to cut the lead to 2. So, St. John’s was forced to foul Isaiah Evans.

And sure enough, Evans missed the first free throw before hitting the second one. St. John’s got the ball into Dylan Darling, who took the ball to the wing, acted like he was going to drive to the basket, and then shot the three-pointer. But it barely hit the rim before going out-of-bounds.

Duke would get the ball into Cameron Boozer, he would hit both free throws to ice the game, and the Duke Blue Devils survived to advance to Sunday’s East Regional Final in Washington, D.C.