Duke is favored for a reason, but that hasn't stopped St. John's from being a popular upset pick for Friday night's Sweet 16 matchup in Washington, D.C.
Most of that has to do with Duke's injury concerns, though Patrick Ngongba is back and Caleb Foster is trending toward a potential return, too. It also has to do with who will be on the bench for St. John's.
Rick Pitino is one of the best to ever do it, and while Jon Scheyer has acquitted himself nicely in replacing Coach K at Duke, it'll be a long time before he carries the same kind of pedigree that Pitino does.
Pitino will devise a gameplan that can take advantage of some of Duke's deficiencies. He'll exploit any weakness he can find. Will that be enough to win the game? He's not sure.
"Are we good enough to beat Duke? I have no idea," Pitino said. ..."We are extremely hungry. But we know Duke is very hungry. Our respect for them is off the charts. We know we're going to have to play great to beat them."
Rick Pitino knows St. John's has to 'play great' to beat Duke - along with some variance luck
The biggest concern for St. John's against Duke is that the Red Storm just aren't a great offensive team. They rank 41st in KenPom's offensive efficiency metric, and a big reason for that is that they aren't a great shooting team, inside or outside the arc.
The Johnnies rank 191st in the country in two-point percentage and 218th in three-point percentage. They make up for that by being elite on the offensive glass (36th in O-REB %), and are a Top 10 overall defense.
In order to beat Duke, though, Pitino knows there's no substitute for the simple: St. John's is going to have to hit shots, particularly from three.
"I think this team needs to win the three-point battle every night to have a chance to win," Pitino said. "We're not a three-point shooting team. So that may be ironic, I'm saying it that way. I think we do because we have deficiencies elsewhere. We're a very poor two-point shooting team, one of the worst in the Big East.
"We have to make the three-point shot."
Three-point variance could go a long way in determining the outcome of this game. Duke isn't a great three-point shooting team, either, ranking 142nd in the country in three-point percentage. And you can bet that Pitino is going to force them into those shots instead of letting them live in the paint. St. John's ranks 37th in the country in two-point defense. They're going to make life difficult for the Blue Devils inside the arc.
It might sound scary, but this game could come down to which team shoots better from three. And neither fanbase is confident that it'll be them.