WASHINGTON — Caleb Foster and his Duke teammates proved St. John’s hasn’t quite cornered the market on tenacity.
Foster returned from a broken foot and rescued the Blue Devils’ national title hopes, helping the No. 1 overall seed in this year’s NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament rally from a 10-point second-half deficit to beat St. John’s 80-75 on Friday night and advance to the Elite Eight.
Playing less than three weeks after surgery on his left foot, Foster scored all of his 11 points in the second half at Capital One Arena. When Cayden Boozer’s ball-handling struggles were allowing the Big East’s Red Storm to extend their lead, Foster came in and turned the game back in Duke’s favor.
“To be honest, he had no business playing tonight — 99% of guys do not come back to play under the circumstances of what’s happened to him,” Blue Devils coach Jon Scheyer said. “It was incredible the way he willed us.”
Isaiah Evans scored 25 points and Cameron Boozer had 22 points and 10 rebounds for the Blue Devils (35-2), who extended the nation’s longest active winning streak to 14 games, but not before the fifth-seeded Red Storm (30-7) pushed the Atlantic Coast Conference champions to the wire.