Dwight Hardy had 26 points and St. John's stunned No. 3 Duke 93-78 on Sunday.
The Red Storm (12-8), which had lost three straight and five of six, took control early and had a 46-25 lead at halftime. Duke (19-2), which came into the game shooting 40 percent from 3-point range, missed its first 10 shots from behind the arc and made one of 13 in the half.
"I felt like we were ready. The guys wanted to play this game," guard Nolan Smith of Duke said. "We wanted to be here but they came out from the jump ball and kicked our butts."
So, how long will the St. John's players be allowed to celebrate Sunday's victory in a game that wasn't as close as the final score indicated?
"Coach Lav said we had two hours to celebrate and then we have to get ready for Rutgers," senior forward Justin Burrell said, referring to Coach Steve Lavin and the Red Storm's next opponent on Wednesday.
Two hours? It will take longer than that just to go over the highlight plays of a game that St. John's had won by halftime. Those last 20 minutes were just a formality.
The Blue Devils shot 29.6 percent (8 of 27) in the first half and they were careless with the ball as well, committing 11 turnovers, one off their season average for a game.
St. John's had a lot to do with how poorly Duke played, using a three-quarter court trap to force the Blue Devils into low-percentage passes that almost all seemed to either be stolen by St. John's or just thrown away.
"It's not an Xs and Os thing today," Coach Mike Krzyzewski of Duke said. "I felt we were not ready to compete, we had blank expressions on our faces and guys weren't talking and that's my responsibility. Our program didn't do well today and that is all our responsibilities."
There was plenty of praise to go around for the Red Storm, which gave the Big East a 6-1 record against teams ranked in the top 10 this season. They were 16 of 28 from the field (57.1 percent) in the first half.
Justin Brownlee added 20 points, nine rebounds and six assists for St. John's, and Paris Horne chipped in 15 points and six assists. St. John's shot 58.2 percent for the game (32 of 55) and was 26 of 33 from the free-throw line.
"I thought our team from the outset executed with precision on offense and brought great intensity to the defensive end of the floor," Lavin said, "and we were able to maintain a high level of basketball for 40 minutes and that was the difference."
Smith led Duke with 32 points and Kyle Singler added 20. Duke finished 5 of 26 from 3-point range — they missed 21 of the first 22 attempts — and had 17 turnovers.
"To sum it up they got whatever they wanted and we just weren't able to bounce back and match them," Singler said.
The sellout crowd of 19,353 at Madison Square Garden — about 60 percent of whom were cheering for St. John's — seemed to be waiting for a run by the Blue Devils, who had won four straight since their loss at Florida State.
The closest Duke would get in the second half would be 11 points after it hit four straights 3-pointers to pull to 87-76.
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