Caleb Foster ‘had no business’ being in Duke’s Sweet 16 game with a recently fractured foot. He willed them to victory anyway

By Dana O’Neil, CNN

Washington, DC (CNN) — Caleb Foster came zipping into the postgame press conference on his Knee Rover, the handy scooter that’s been his speed demon ride for the past two-plus weeks.

His entire right foot encased in ice, Foster bunny-hopped onto the dais, hobbling from ice foot to sneakered foot, to his seat.

As Foster sat down, his coach nodded in his direction.

“He had no business,’’ Jon Scheyer said, “playing in this game. There are no analytics, no statistics to measure how big his heart is for what he did tonight.’’

Technically there are statistics – 11 points and two assists in 18 minutes – but to Scheyer’s point, they do not tell the tale of what Foster did for Duke in its Sweet 16 matchup against St. John’s. Put simply, Foster is why the Blue Devils are back in the Elite Eight. He is why they beat St. John’s, 80-75. He did not have the most points (Isaiah Evans did that), or a double-double (that was Cam Boozer) but he had all of the will.

On March 7, Foster fractured his foot in a game against rival North Carolina. On March 8, he had surgery. He says doctors told him he could return in two weeks.

“They didn’t say that,’’ Scheyer said with a laugh. “You just heard that.’’

“Well, in my mind he said two weeks,’’ Foster replied.

There is what a doctor says, of course, and there is what a body can do. Until he entered the game against the Johnnies at the 14:36 mark, Foster had not played a lick of five-on-five ball with his teammates since the injury. He’d zipped around on his knee scooter, dropped into huddles to share his thoughts and wisdom, but largely holed up in the very lonely isolation of rehab.

Even when the medical staff told Scheyer that Foster could go in the regional semifinal, the coach expected maybe he’d get a few minutes here and there to give Cayden Boozer a blow, not do anything of much significance. Eight to 10 minutes, that was Scheyer’s hope.

Instead, there was Foster, checking into the game just as the whole thing threatened to go off the rails for Duke. St. John’s does not play pretty basketball. The Johnnies thrive on messy, on disruptive pressure that limit possessions to compensate for what is ordinarily their own offensive shortcomings.

Throwing the scout on its ear, St. John’s inexplicably scorched the nets with nine first-half threes, and role player Ruben Prey making like Villanova’s Harold Jensen circa 1985. In the first half, the Portuguese player went three for three from the arc – or draining one more triple than he had in any other games this year.

That staked the Red Storm to a 40-39 lead and when reality came back, St. John’s returned to its bread and butter. Upping the full-court pressure and creating chaos, the backcourt forced Duke into three consecutive turnovers, starting what would be a 13-0 run that would stake St. John’s to a 55-45 lead.

Enter Foster. The guard who was expected to do nothing more than fill some gap time instead scored seven consecutive points while simultaneously calming the Blue Devils’ huddle.

Asked when he thought his teammate was back, Boozer chuckled: “When he scored four times in a row,’’ he said. “That was definitely the moment.’’

It is a moment Foster, frankly, has been waiting for. To understand his motivation, it’s best to consider his history.

He is a North Carolina kid who grew up watching Duke win national championships and dreamed of winning one of his own someday. He committed to the Blue Devils when he was 16. But in his freshman year, a stress fracture sent him to the bench just as the good part of the season started. The Blue Devils went onto the Elite Eight; Foster simply watched from the bench.

When he got hurt this time, he made a deal with Scheyer. He’d work as hard as he could so long as the coach agreed that if there was even a sliver of an opening to get back on the court, Scheyer wouldn’t stop him.

“You got to promise me,’’ Foster told Scheyer, “you’ll let me put this uniform on again with our guys.’’

It would, of course, be foolish of Scheyer to stand in the way. As talented as the Blue Devils are, they need a rudder to steer them. Foster is the rudder. In the five games before his injury, Foster dished out 22 assists to just two turnovers. He’s also played 96 games in a Duke uniform – or nearly 20 more than anyone else for the Blue Devils. He understands big games and hard games, pressure and expectation.

“He’s our most experienced guy in these moments,’’ Scheyer said. “So, I thought his voice in the huddle, the look he had was completely determined to win. And I thought that really helped us, especially when we got down in the second half.’’

Foster carried the calm to the bitter end. With 2.1 seconds left, in a game so taut every possession felt like a tug of war and Duke trying to set up a press-break offense, the Blue Devils were wandering the court, heading this way and that. Caleb Foster thumbed over his shoulder to move Cam Boozer. He motioned downcourt, telling Dame Sarr where to set up and then he went under the basket and bounced a hard pass to Boozer.

After Boozer got fouled, there was Foster again, huddling up the Blue Devils, getting them organized. And finally, after Boozer sunk the two free throws to seal the 80-75 win over St. John’s and send Duke onto the Elite Eight, Foster very stoically and yet emphatically pumped his fist in the air.

“What he did, it was a surreal thing to coach,’’ Scheyer said. “I really like he was going to will us to victory, and that’s what he did.’’

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