Locked On ACC - Daily College Football & Basketball Podcast - Elite: Duke Blue Devils SURVIVE St. John's, Cameron Boozer and Caleb Foster Ignite UConn Battle

Episode Date: March 28, 2026

Duke Blue Devils survive St. John’s upset bid thanks to Cameron Boozer’s dominant double-double and Caleb Foster’s unexpected return from injury. Are the Blue Devils poised to conquer UConn and reach the Final Four? Alex Donno and Kenton Gibbs break down Duke’s rebound supremacy, Isaiah Evans’ crucial 25 points, and Foster’s clutch second-half performance. The conversation explores St. John’s relentless defense under Rick Pitino, analyzes Duke’s path in an Elite Eight field lacking true Cinderellas, and questions if Iowa’s run really fits the Cinderella narrative. Plus: predictions for Duke vs. UConn, insights on the lineups, and how Foster’s rising health could change the strategy. Is Duke’s physical edge and star power enough against the Huskies? Don’t miss this ACC tournament showdown analysis. Everydayer Club  If you never miss an episode, it’s time to make it official. Join the Locked On Everydayer Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only Discord, and more — all built for our most loyal fans. Click here to learn more and join your team’s community: https://lockedonpodcasts.com/everydayerclub     Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! 5-Hour ENERGY Have your cake & drink it too. Birthday cake-flavor is back, no fork needed. Vanilla-y cakey flavor, caffeinated kick, and no sugar. It's party time. Order Now at https://5-hourENERGY.com or Amazon. Mazda Like our players, we’re driven by the details. Highlights make the reel. But the work behind them makes it count.
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The Duke Blue Devils were tested by St. John's, but they come out on top at a huge matchup with Yukon is up next. You are Locked on ACC, your daily podcast on the Atlantic Coast Conference. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. The ACC's last hope keeps on dancing into the elite eight. He is Kenton Gibbs from Lockdown Wolfpack. I am Alex Dono from Lockdowne Canes on the set. We'll talk about the big matchup against the Huskies coming up next for the Blue Devils, but how Duke managed to get by St. John's.

And Kenton, it was apparent from the first half that the Johnies were going to give Duke all that they could handle. And St. John's even had a 10 point second half lead before Duke really took over. St. Johns was hitting three pointers early on, nine three pointers in the first half. They had a 40 to 39 lead at halftime. but Cameron Boozer did his thing, logging his 22nd double double of the season. Isaiah Evans scored 25 points and the surprise return from Caleb Foster off of a broken foot for Duke. You talk about clutch. He scores all 11 of his points in the second half, KG.

Duke just ultimately had too much for St. John's. I first want to say this. I apologize to St. John's. I was not familiar with your game. right. Oh, yeah. And let me, let me say, I mean that sarcastically, because they were everything that we thought they were going to be, right, Dono? Defensively, everything you expect from a Rick Petito coachee. That's it. Defensively, they were everywhere they got to be. Rotations extremely tight, battling on the boards. And granted, Duke won the rebounded by some, a good margin,

but their leading rebounder, some six-nine guy that we. We know, hey, brother, get ready to learn some El Balancesto La Liga. Get ready to learn some of that. Get ready to learn some Premier League basketball overseas. Because this young man, you know, they're fighting and they're battling. They're doing all that things. But, to their credit, this was not a game where St. Johns was leading or all that good stuff because they were in a situation of, you know, Duke not trying, not.

showing up. St. John's was just hitting some shots. You know, I'm a big believer, and sometimes you just tip your cap. You just tip your ball cap. No defense can stop everything, especially in sports today where it's designed for more scoring and all that. There were shots that St. John's is hitting where you just go, hey, man, if he hits that shot, you tip your cap, get back and make them stop you. They did that. Of those non-3s that they hit in the first half, I want to say at least six or seven were contested. Yes, they were. They're not seeing wide open.

Hey, my kid can make that in the driveway type of stuff, right? I don't have any children, but you get the point. It's not that deal. So ultimately, you know, St. John showed up, put out a hell of an effort. But Duke showed why they are Duke. They took the Johnny's best punch and said, oh, I hear no bell. Oh, hey, you know, real WW. style interest from Caleb Foster.

It was by gole, who's that coming down and out? Is that Caleb Foster? And going off for double digits in the second half. This is the type of game that, you know, we talk about upsets and all that being what March Madness is about. This type of game is also what it's all about. Seeing the best teams in the nation push to their limits, maybe even past their limits by a team like Rick Petinos that we all know,

very good, very scrappy. I talk about some teams having accountants. I've already said St. John's above that. They may not have multiple lottery guys. They have some ball players in that university. And they push this Duke team for everything they could have. And I believe that Duke is going to be better for it in their matchup against Yukon. Because again, I'm not saying that Hurley is the exact same way as Patino.

But when they see each other defensively, I know that it's the Spider-Man that mean. Twy here. How you doing? What's going on? That's right. A couple of the key stats in this one for Duke. Rebounding.

They out rebounded St. John's by double digits. 40 for Duke, 27 for St. John's, and points in paint. Plus 14 for Duke. It's a massive difference. 36 points in the paint to 22. Duke was better overall shooting. 54% from the floor to 45%.

St. Johns did have the edge in three-point shooting at 41% to 36. percent St. John's hit 13 three-pointers, Kenton, 13 to 32. Duke hit just five three-pointers. In this one, they went five for 14. But ultimately, the rebounding, the muscle, the points in the paint, little Cameron Boozer sprinkled in was just too much for St. John. Some of the other stats for Duke. I mentioned Boozer. His 22nd double-double, 22 points and 10 rebounds along the way. Caden, Boozer had some important plays as well in this one, although he only only. only score seven points. Isaiah Evans, I mentioned, led the way with 25 points. Caleb Foster off the bench with 11 points. And that's another thing, Kenton, that we need to consider

heading into this Yukon game is Caleb Foster is probably going to only keep getting healthier, not the opposite. I mean, he came on as a substitute. His first check-in was actually, I think, the under 16-minute timeout, which was a little bit earlier than we thought he would come in when we found out he would play. Let me see what his total minutes were Foster. Played 19 minutes. I believe he was, I believe most of the same now.

Yeah, he led the team in bench minutes Foster. So, you know, assuming, you know, he didn't like tweak anything in the game, and I don't think he did, you would imagine he's going to play an even bigger role, perhaps even start in the St. John's game or in the Yukon game. You know, I'm going to tell you this. When you look at what these guys do or don't bring, and when you look at what Foster himself, brings to this team.

It is no, there's no shortage. There's no accident in this man being the leader amongst the guards and assist and whatnot. Because it is, it's very important that Caleb Foster is there to kind of start a drink, be that lightning rod. And when you have a front court like theirs, when you have wings like theirs, you need guys on the perimeter that are going to open this thing up in terms of their ability to kind of spread the floor and all those things. and Caleb Foster has done that at a ridiculously high rate this year, shooting 39.8% from deep, basically 40% from deep.

So Caleb Foster, the people, foster, we need you. One more time. Maybe two more times. Maybe three more times. Maybe three more times. Because at the end of the day, I truly think the competition is getting tougher. The field's getting narrower. You know, we didn't have many Cinderella to begin with this year.

and we all know why that is. We all know it's the new way of the world. It's the new effect. We won't see a lot of Cinderella's. But even if this was one of the traditional tournaments where you do have Cinderella, what always remains true? The Cinderella's don't make it all the way normally.

The Cinderella don't finish the job normally. So this is the time where we normally go, oh, man, that cool team was kind of fun, but they ran into bug meet windshield. And this is the time where the stars shine brightest. So I'm hoping that Caleb Foster continues to shine like the start of years through the rest of his tournament. Speaking of no Cinderella's, I saw a really, really dumb comment on social media about the Cinderella factor in the NCAA tournament. I want to get your take on it.

Plus, let's examine the rest of the field where Duke stands among the eight that remain and what should happen in this Yukon game coming up. You want to keep it locked right here. We're not done yet on this brand new episode of Lockdowne ACC. This is moving the game forward by Mazda. For those who know, the score never tells the whole story. Folks, we mentioned the return for the Duke Blue Devils by Caleb Foster. I mean, this guy, a couple months ago, broken foot, surgery, he's already back. The timeline accelerated quicker than anyone thought.

Comes back with three rebounds, two assists, 11 points, all in the second half to help his team propel to victory and an elite eight birth. I think it's a wonderful story, and it shows you there's more to these players than the highlights. It's the early mornings, the late night runs, constantly showing up for their squad on and off the court. The all-new Mazda CX-5 moves the same way, with more space to connect, a bold new design and more intuitive technology. So you can stay connected on the road in every position you play. The all-new Mazda-C-X-5, more to move every side of you. Folks, we're also brought to you by Supply House. show up on game day without a plan and you wouldn't show up to a job without the right parts.

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SH5 college supply house. Real people, real service. As we head into this next round of big games, Guys, it's one of the best times of the year. Right now, Fanduel is giving new customers a way to stay in the action all tournament long. Here's the best part. You get up to $300 back in bonus bets every day for 10 days. That means 10 chances to stay involved through the rest of this big tournament.

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And also, make sure you're checking out the Everydayer Club. You get a free month with the Code March, and you get exclusive content, add free versions of our episodes, so many other great features, Discord chat with our hosts. Go to Lockedonpodcast.com slash Everydayer and become an Everydayer for free for a month with the code. March. All right. So we're looking at the elite eight field, Kent. And we'll go to the games in order Saturday into Sunday. So you got number three, Illinois versus number nine, Iowa.

One seed Arizona against two seed Purdue. That's on Saturday. Sunday, two games. One seed Michigan against six seed Tennessee. Number one seed Duke against two seed Yukon is fantastic. Real quick, Kenton, the stupid statement I saw someone make. I can't remember. And again, Nowadays with social media, you can never tell who's trolling on purpose just for engagement. Like there is a lot of that. This might have been that. But I saw some dude saying like, hey, to anyone who says there are no Cinderella's anymore, look at number nine, Iowa, who makes it to the elite eight, which was one of the most idiot.

You're calling Iowa a Cinderella? Like Cinderella is like George Mason, Wichita State, Loyola. Like those are Cinderella's Iowa out of the Big Ten, who was even favored against a higher seed to open up the tournament. What are we doing here? If you think Iowa is a Cinderella, it's really hopeless out there for college basketball fans. Here's the thing, and I want to be very clear about this,

I am going to insult some people right now, and I'm aware of that. If we know where your school is on a map, If we know the general vicinity of where your school is on a map, you're disqualified for being a Cinderella. You're disqualified. If we're going back to the George Mason run and we were to say, where is George Mason on the map? Here you go. Just put your finger within a hundred or so miles, right?

Just on a random U.S. map, you wouldn't know. If I was to say, where is Iowa on a map? If you didn't know that, I'm going to tell you, turn off this TV, turn off this, whatever you listen to this song. And I know Donno is going to be upset with me because we're supposed to keep listeners here, but turn it off and go get on the nearest school bus. I don't care where the school bus is headed. Just get on the bus and go learn with the babies because we got to teach you some geography because why do you not know where Iowa is on the map? Yeah, that's not good. That alone makes Iowa outside of the Cinderella territory.

But then you look at the conference you're in, one of the two major conferences in every sport because it's becoming a thing where if you're making enough money in football, you think can make enough to give enough to all your other sports to where basketball should be good in no time. So should baseball. So you can't really, I'm sorry. You can't be a Cinderella whenever.

Everybody knows exactly where you're from, exactly what you represent. When people know about your children's hospital or ritual, that you're all all wave at the kids, even opposing to. You can't be. You can't be a Cinderella with that. You see the number of people, I was going through that, that X timeline. The number of, like, big accounts like Deadspin, who consider Iowa to be a Cinderella. I mean, what are we doing here? People were reaching for anything, and that's the thing, Donald.

When folks have no hope for the Cinderella, you make one. You make a Cinderella the best you could get, and they're the closest we've got. Because nobody else is, number one, a shockingly high number of people probably can't identify Iowa on a map. Number two, they're still the highest seed remaining. Number three, they're not traditionally thought of as a basketball school. So again, in the absence of an actual Cinderella, because every time a player averages 15 points per game, then he lowered a business, somebody's coming up, hey man, you want your mama still in the hood or you want to change your life? What you want to do? You want to be a good son? You want to be a good son? And come on over here, and we'll give you all the money you can need. In lieu of things like that happening, we're not going to see those teams that a lot of Cinderella's had two things. Great guard play and lots of experience at almost every level. Now, if you have valuable experience, those guys are going to get paid to be debt pieces elsewhere, as opposed to being started at your school and cultivating that three to four year chemistry that helps you pull off some of these massive upsets where you're looking up and you're like, wait a minute.

How do you? Is that Loyola in them? How are they lasting here? So let me see. I think Duke is favorite. by six and a half. Let me double check that for Sunday. Yeah, Duke, five and a half. Duke is favored by five and a half points against Yukon. They didn't cover against St. John's. I think they were six and a half point favorites against the Johnny's.

I would actually, if I don't know if I'm going to make a play on this game or not, obviously if I do, it's going to be on fanduil.com, salute to them. but I would probably either sit this one out or I might go Yukon plus five and a half thinking Duke wins the game outright, but it could be like a final possession type of thing. You know, as much as people give Duke crap about, oh man, Sienna took you to the wire. Sienna took you to the wire. That Furman team, that Furman team gave Yukon everything that they could handle. For those of you who don't know, Furman led that game.

points after the halfway mark in the first half. And they also went to halftime trailing by three or four points. That Furman team gave them all they could handle in that first half. Now, what we expected to happen with the Duke game happened there, where they pulled away and all of a sudden it's like, oh, okay, they're very clearly the better team here and they're showing it. But you guys have been on a very similar trajectory. It's not like, you know,

you kind of has just been whacking stuff. incident man oh early a couple of day no for reference for reference st johns and yukon are in the same conference who do you think was the conference champions oh uh st johns correct st johns were the conference champs so with that in mind i i see definitely see it's there are obvious reasons why uh duke is the favorite here i'm expecting duke to win this game i'm not sure if i'm going you know If I were a better, which again, don't be a degenerate, do so responsibly, which, you know, I'm not sure I would bet on this even if I was a betting man. Yeah, I'm with you, but I think if I do end up betting on it, I'm probably going to go Yukon plus five and a half thinking Duke wins by two, three points. Something like that would probably be, probably be my play.

So yeah, everyone enjoy the Elite 8 coming up. Sweet 16 was a lot of fun. Duke keeps on dancing. Shout out to JJ from lockdown Blue Devils for doing his thing. Kenton Gibbs, make sure you follow him at TGIF underscore Kenton and on Lockedon Wolfpack. Follow me at Alex Dono and on Locked on Cains. And we'll talk to you next time on another episode of Locked on ACC. We are part of the number one Locked on podcast network. Your team every day.