By ADAM ZAGORIA
DURHAM, N.C. –– After last year’s loss to St. John’s at Madison Square Garden, No. 2 Duke has a message for the Red Storm.
“We feel like we owe them one,” junior forward Jack White said Friday. “We know that the last time we lost a non-conference game in Cameron was against St. John’s. So it’s a game we’re really hungry for, we really want to do well in and win and obviously make a statement as a team and get better as a team.”
That non-conference game was back on Feb, 26, 2000 when White, Zion Williamson, R.J. Barrett and company were either infants or not even born yet.
Duke leads St. John’s 16-7 all-time, but the Red Storm won last year’s game at Madison Square Garden, 81-77, in a loss that Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski called “disgusting.” Shamorie Ponds went for 33 in that game.
Now here comes Ponds and the Red Storm (16-5) looking to score what would be their biggest NCAA Tournament resume win of the season at Duke (18-2), their last non-conference game of the season outside the Big East. The game marks Chris Mullin’s first appearance at Duke since his official visit in the early 1980s.
“[Ponds] just plays with a lot of confidence, a lot of freedom and you know he’s really good,” White said. “He can make those plays. He can go both ways, he can shoot, he can finish. I think we just need to bring the game to him and be the aggressor. We can’t be on the back foot and let him attack us. We need to really take our defense to him. And especially, with Tre he plays defense as well as anybody in the country.”
Tre Jones says he’ll guard @ShamorieP and try to force him into tough shots. The @DukeMBB guys say they owe @StJohnsBBall one from last year’s loss at MSG. pic.twitter.com/AI1bKwGeJc
— Adam Zagoria (@AdamZagoria) February 1, 2019
Jones watched last year’s game as a high school student at Apple Valley (MN) High School and said, “We were cheering for Duke last year. So anybody they lose to, we obviously want to get them back…Coach mentioned today how they beat us last year so other guys have had that feeling.”
Jones, arguably the best on-ball defender in the nation, is back healthy after a separated shoulder in the Syracuse game and is looking forward to trying to contain Ponds, who’s averaging 20.9 points, 5.7 assists and 4.6 rebounds and is coming off a 26-point, 8-rebound, 8-assists outing in the win at Creighton.
“I’m just trying to make him take tough shots,” Jones said. “He’s a really good scorer, a volume shooter so I’m trying to force him into tough shots and hopefully he’s not making them.”
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