Duke men's basketball outplayed in the paint and on the boards by undersized St. John's

With freshmen stars Wendell Carter Jr. and Marvin Bagley III down low, Duke generally dominates on the boards.

But during a pivotal half, the Blue Devils—who are ranked second nationally in rebounds per game—were thoroughly outmatched. Although Bagley spent a portion of the period sidelined due to foul trouble, reserve big men Javin DeLaurier and Marques Bolden still towered over St. John’s, whose power forward was 6-foot-7.

For a team holding a seven-point lead at halftime despite playing uneven basketball, the lack of intensity on the boards was exactly what Duke could not afford.

The hot-shooting Red Storm grabbed 25 rebounds to the Blue Devils’ 18 in the second half, allowing them to mount a comeback as their possessions piled up. With 16 offensive rebounds in the game, St. John’s made Duke pay, making more than 46 percent of their shots from the field and beyond the arc.

“It’s simply just a lack of communication for a period of time. When we come down and we’re tired, we have to fight through it,” freshman Gary Trent Jr. said. “We have to continue to talk, continue to stay together, to be together.”

Compared to the first half, when Carter nearly single-handedly outrebounded the Red Storm as they snagged just eight, with the second half came a stark difference. Perhaps some of that had to do with Bagley being saddled with foul trouble, but 6-foot-1 guard Shamorie Ponds led St. John’s with seven total rebounds.

Although Ponds will grab all the headlines after dropping 33 points, including a dagger 3-pointer over Trent with the shot clock winding down, he made a major impact in keeping possessions alive. After forward Tariq Owens would manage to bat the ball away from Carter, Ponds would swoop in and grab an offensive rebound multiple times. All the long rebounds and loose balls were getting tracked down by the Red Storm’s guards.

“We’re really young. Young is more susceptible to inconsistency, and that’s what we are,” Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “In games that we’ve lost, we’ve been incredibly inconsistent throughout the game.”

To Krzyzewski’s point, the Red Storm scored 24 points off turnovers, with Ponds leading the charge on the break. Sometimes he pulled up, and other times he drove at Duke’s big men, earning multiple and-one opportunities in the second half. Against a team that entered the contest missing its second-leading scorer and ranking 166th in Ken Pomeroy’s adjusted offensive efficiency metric, it seemed as though the Blue Devils were helping St. John’s out, rather than trying to stop it at times.

Complete with their second-half dominance on the boards came the Red Storm’s ease scoring around the basket. St. John’s outscored Duke 40-28 in the paint, and the Blue Devils struggled to contain the pick-and-roll duo of Ponds and Owens. If Owens was not open on the roll—which was infrequent—then Ponds would either drive or kick it out to forward Bashir Ahmed, who racked up 19 points of his own.

“You have to respond while it’s going on—at halftime, at a timeout—you have got to respond. When you don’t, then you’re into your own stuff,” Krzyzewski said. “The basketball gods understand in most cases who should win, so losing when [we] had a chance to win after not playing well, we got what we deserved.”