Duke lost to a St. John’s team that’s 0-11 in the Big East

St. John’s had not won a game since Dec. 20. The Johnnies are currently in the basement of the Big East at 0-11. They entered Saturday afternoon’s game with Duke ranked No. 90 on KenPom. The Blue Devils were No. 4. Duke was favored by 11 points.

None of that mattered. St. John’s cut up Duke’s porous defense on the way to a 81-77 win in Madison Square Garden.

Shamorie Ponds led the way for the Johnnies with 33 points, while teammate Bashir Ahmed added 19 points.

St. John’s led Duke by 11 points with eight minutes left when the Blue Devils started their comeback. Duke took a one-point lead with just over a minute remaining, but a big shot by Ponds and some clutch free throw shooting locked in the win.

St. John’s shot 46.2 percent from the field and 47.1 percent from three.

Duke has the second most efficient offense in the country right now. Defensively, they rank only No. 48 in efficiency.

Duke’s defensive woes are no new thing. They allowed 89 points in a loss to Boston College and 96 points in a loss to NC State. Those were bad losses, and falling to St. John’s might be even worse, even in New York City.

Duke’s big men cannot guard ball screens. They’ve essentially committed to a zone defense at this point, but it allowed St. John’s shooters to splash jumpers both from three-point territory and mid-range.

There’s no excuse for a team as athletic as Duke to be this poor in man-to-man defense. That has to change before March if they want another deep NCAA tournament run.