WASHINGTON, D.C. — When Isaiah Evans gets it going, you hear it. His mouth starts running as his point total starts rising, and they can both get going in a hurry. So when Evans made a tough shot through contact and flashed the “too small” sign to his defender, Oziyah Sellers, and then followed it up shortly thereafter with a vicious dunk and some trash talk to the camera on the baseline, it was a good sign for Duke.But it was the three points — and three words — that he unfurled late that proved his mettle, and that of his Duke teammates. Down 69-67 with under four minutes to go, Evans sidestepped to his left and nailed a fadeaway 3-pointer, an audacious shot — and an even more audacious make. On his way back down the floor, he turned to Grant Hill, the former Blue Devils star on the call for CBS — and let loose a shout:”I’m so cold!”Cold-blooded, that is, even when the heat of the game was at its peak. Or maybe, it wasn’t all that hot for Evans.”I mean, I seen the play before it happened,” Evans said postgame. “He was trying to cheat the screen, and I rejected it, and he tried to cut off. I stepped back, and everything was just in the flow.”
Duke would never trail again en route to a hard-fought — scratch that, ferociously fought — 80-75 win over St. John’s that sends the Blue Devils to the Elite 8. Evans finished with 25 points on an efficient 10 for 15 shooting, and he made four of Duke’s five 3-pointers. And while Evans played it cool postgame, his teammates had bigger reactions.”That, to me, sounds like ‘Showtime,’ man,” said Cameron Boozer, the freshman National Player of the Year frontrunner. His brother wasn’t all that surprised either”He said that?!” Cayden Boozer replied before collecting himself. “I mean, that doesn’t surprise me, but that’s ballsy.”
The numbers do Evans all the justice. He’s the first Duke player to score 25 or more on 15 or fewer shots in the Sweet 16 or later since Kyrie Irving in 2011. But the box score doesn’t tell half the story of Duke’s triumph. This one required a ripped jersey, a miraculously healing foot and, for lack of a better word, ballsy-ness.’He had no business playing’Caleb Foster
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The doctors said one thing. Caleb Foster heard another. His hearing, of course, is…
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2026-03-28 05:11:48
