Jon Scheyer is going to have to show his coaching chops in order to get Duke out of a loaded East Regional.
The Selection Committee dropped Hall-of-Fame-level coaches as landmines in Duke's path to the Final Four, almost as if to say: hey, if you're historically good enough as the numbers seem to suggest, this shouldn't be a problem.
While either Dan Hurley and UConn or Tom Izzo and Michigan State await in the Elite Eight, Scheyer will have to lead his Blue Devils past Rick Pitino and St. John's on Friday to even get there.
And this game is far from a guarantee.
Pitino is one of the best coaches in college basketball history, and he's pretty much tailored his St. John's defense to stop exactly the kind of things that Duke does so well. That fact is probably preventing Scheyer from sleeping well heading into Friday night.
Duke's offense will have a hard time scoring on St. John's
In another piece, we hit on Duke's struggles with turnovers this year, particularly in the 2nd Round win over TCU, where it gave the ball away 17 times. That has been an issue without Caleb Foster, and while he has an outside chance of playing against the Red Storm, the most likely outcome is that he sits.
But it's not just the turnovers that could be problematic against St. John's. The Johnnies just so happen to be elite at everything defensively that Duke is elite at offensively.
Duke has been a half-court offense all year. They slow the game down, dump it down to Boozer, and let him go to work and either score or kick it out to shooters or cutters. In the NCAA Tournament so far, the Blue Devils are only scoring 8% of their points in transition, per CBB Analytics.
Duke has been lethal in the halfcourt, but St. John's ranks in the 90th percentile on the season in opposing field goal percentage in halfcourt sets.
The Blue Devils tend to do a ton of damage at the rim, particularly with the return of star center Patrick Ngongba. In two tournament games, 42.6% of Duke's field goal attempts are coming at the rim, and they are shooting an obscene 73.9% on those shots, which tops the field.
St. John's does not let you score at the rim. They are in the 90th percentile in opponents' field goal percentage on rim attempts.
Pitino's gameplan is going to be to keep Duke out of the paint, force the ball out of the hands of Cameron Boozer, and make the Blue Devils hit shots from the outside. Duke is certainly capable of getting hot from three, but it has been inconsistent from there this season.
Duke's season potentially coming down to three-point shooting variance is a scary thought, but it's exactly what Pitino is going to try to make a reality on Friday night in D.C.