No. 2 Duke Escapes Red Storm

This was the best game he ever played in, and Elton Brand had to watch the last 10 seconds of regulation and all of overtime from the bench.

No. 2 Duke beat No. 8 St. John's 92-88 Sunday in a game in which seven players fouled out and Bootsy Thornton of the Red Storm scored a career-high 40 points.

"That was just unbelievable. You can't describe a game like that," said Brand, who had 16 points, 12 rebounds and seven blocks before fouling out. "That was the greatest game I was ever in and we won. When we went down in overtime I thought we might lose, but we still had guys who came through for us."

Thornton, a 6-foot-4 junior guard, scored 23 of his team's final 36 points and finished with 12 rebounds for St. John's (16-4).

"We didn't have anything to prove. This was just the next game for us," said Thornton, who was 14 of 24 from the field, including 7 of 11 from 3-point range. "We have nothing to prove to anybody."

When Thornton said that, St. John's coach Mike Jarvis leaned over and added: "That's why he got 40."

He got them in bunches. He scored the final eight points of the first half to cut Duke's 10-point lead to 39-37. He scored 14 straight for the Red Storm in one second-half stretch and he scored in overtime, getting six of the eight his team had in the extra five minutes.

He is the first St. John's player to score 40 points since Malik Sealy had 43 against Central Connecticut State on Nov. 24, 1990.

"He's tough coming off those screens," Duke's Trajan Langdon said. "He gets the shot off so quick and then he knows you're guarding for that and drives strong and gets to the line."

The free-throw line was where Duke (19-1) struggled until overtime.

With a cool victory Sunday, Corey Maggette and Duke pointed out they might be the team to beat come tournament time. (AP)

Thornton gave the Red Storm an 84-81 lead two minutes into overtime. But the Blue Devils made nine of 11 the rest of the way. The last three were by Chris Carrawell over the final 18 seconds after Thornton had pulled St. John's within 89-88 with his seventh 3-pointer.

"We wanted to make sure Carrawell stayed in the game," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "We wanted him in at the end."

A lot of players weren't around at the end because of fouls. Brand and point guard William Avery were gone for Duke, while Ron Artest was among the four St. John's players who fouled out, leaving the game in the hands of the supporting cast.

"We won without having our inside presence and our ballhandler in the overtime," Langdon said. "I thought we played good defense but at time we got sloppy. This was a big game for us and we'll get better as we go on."

The win was Duke's 14th straight and it was the closest of the streak, with only two of those games less than 20-point victories.

St. John's was playing without its leading rebounder, Tyrone Grant, who is sidelined indefinitely with a broken right wrist, and nearly the entire team was in foul trouble in the second half.

Still, the Red Storm stayed close. They took a 76-75 lead with 1:37 left in regulation on a three-point play by Artest, who sat out eight minutes after getting his fourth foul.

Two free throws by Nate James with 9.3 seconds left gave Duke an 81-78 lead. But Artest, who had missed most of the second half with four fouls, hit a 3-pointer with 1.1 seconds left to force overtime.

"Great players do that," Jarvis said of Artest's heroics late in regulation. "On the bench he was cheering and coaching but he wanted to go back in. I told him we'd stay close and give him a chance to win it when he got in."

Carrawell had 17 points to lead six Blue Devils in double figures. Langdon finished with 15 points and was 7-for-8 from the line as the Blue Devils finished 24-for-37.

Artest finished with 22 points, and Erick Barkley had 12 points and 11 assists for the Red Storm.

The loss snapped St. John's four-game winning streak and was the fifth straight time it has lost to Duke.

The crowd of 19,528 was the first sellout for a college regular-season game at Madison Square Garden since Connecticut-St. John's in 1996.

"Coach had told us this would be like a regional final with the atmosphere and the competition," Langdon said. "He was right."

© 1998 CBS SportsLine USA, Inc. All rights reserved