The St. John's basketball program is currently gearing up for their upcoming Sweet 16 game against the Duke Blue Devils. St. John's got to this point thanks to a buzzer-beating win over Kansas in the Round of 32 over the weekend, which personified the “Survive and Advance” mantra of March Madness.
Recently, St. John's head coach and college basketball legend Rick Pitino dropped a take on the schedule that Duke played this year.
“I’ve never seen a schedule like that in my career. … it’s an amazing schedule,” said Pitino, per Jeff Goodman on X, formerly Twitter.
Indeed, the Blue Devils, who are coached by Jon Scheyer, had quite a difficult out of conference schedule this year, as has become the custom for the program since Scheyer took over a few years ago.
The Blue Devils entered this year's NCAA tournament as the number one overall seed, but found themselves shockingly on the ropes in the first round against Siena, having to rally back from a double-digit halftime deficit, before ultimately pulling away down the stretch. They then had a much more solid performance in the second round against TCU, cruising to a 23-point victory.
Meanwhile, St. John's didn't have much of a problem getting through the first round of the tournament, but needed some late-game heroics to squeeze by Kansas, which had potential number one NBA draft pick Darryn Peterson playing for their squad.
Now, the stage is set for the matchup between the Red Storm and the Blue Devils, with ticket prices skyrocketing to see two of the blue blood powerhouses of the sport match up on Friday. Tipoff for the game is set for 7:10 pm ET from the Capital One Arena in Washington, DC.
