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When: January 25, 2015
Where: Madison Square Garden; New York, NY
The last time Duke and St. John's met on the hardwood of Madison Square Garden resulted in a 83-76 victory for the Blue Devils and the fifteenth loss all time for the Red Storm against the Blue Devils. That was two years ago, but the history of St. John's and Duke has never been a favorable one for the Red Storm. In 18 meetings since 1979-80, St. John's is 3-15 against the Dukies, with the last victory coming in Steve Lavin's first season as head coach.
This season's game will be the first installment of what is to become a home-and-home series between the two schools with the first match up taking place at Madison Square Garden this season and next year shifting over to Cameron Indoor Stadium for the 2015-16 season. It is the perfect nonconference test for the Johnnies as it provides a Power 5 school challenge, but also is one of those matchups that is a test for the Big East as well. Fortunately for St. John's, the team for this season is a veteran that will feature players such as D`Angelo Harrison and Phil Greene IV who both played against Duke two years ago. While it will be some different players, it will be still be a Mike Krzyzewski coached team that they will be facing against. It is that they will just have to be prepared for what this season's Duke team will be like.
As for Duke, they looking to past the year that was with Jabari Parker and once again focus on trying to recapture the Atlantic Coast Conference title from Virginia, but also look to keep improving their relatively young squad that feature returnees such as Rasheed Sulaimon, who as the season progressed came into his own and Amile Jefferson. This season should be business as usual for Coach K and the Duke Blue Devils, as the primary focus of this match up will be on Steve Lavin and St. John's trying to unseat Duke of their dominance over the Red Storm.
While the season is still months away, both team will be working hard to the build up of this match up as it is one of the more intriguing non-conference games for a Big East school this year.