WASHINGTON, D.C. — When Isaiah Evans gets it going, you hear it. His mouth starts running as his point total starts rising, and they can both get going in a hurry. So when Evans made a tough shot through contact and flashed the “too small” sign to his defender, Oziyah Sellers, and then followed it up shortly thereafter with a vicious dunk and some trash talk to the camera on the baseline, it was a good sign for Duke.

But it was the three points — and three words — that he unfurled late that proved his mettle, and that of his Duke teammates. Down 69-67 with under four minutes to go, Evans sidestepped to his left and nailed a fadeaway 3-pointer, an audacious shot — and an even more audacious make. On his way back down the floor, he turned to Grant Hill, the former Blue Devils star on the call for CBS — and let loose a shout:

“I’m so cold!”

Cold-blooded, that is, even when the heat of the game was at its peak. Or maybe, it wasn’t all that hot for Evans.

“I mean, I seen the play before it happened,” Evans said postgame. “He was trying to cheat the screen, and I rejected it, and he tried to cut off. I stepped back, and everything was just in the flow.”

Duke would never trail again en route to a hard-fought — scratch that, ferociously fought — 80-75 win over St. John’s that sends the Blue Devils to the Elite 8. Evans finished with 25 points on an efficient 10 for 15 shooting, and he made four of Duke’s five 3-pointers. And while Evans played it cool postgame, his teammates had bigger reactions.

“That, to me, sounds like ‘Showtime,’ man,” said Cameron Boozer, the freshman National Player of the Year frontrunner. His brother wasn’t all that surprised either

“He said that?!” Cayden Boozer replied before collecting himself. “I mean, that doesn’t surprise me, but that’s ballsy.”

The numbers do Evans all the justice. He’s the first Duke player to score 25 or more on 15 or fewer shots in the Sweet 16 or later since Kyrie Irving in 2011. But the box score doesn’t tell half the story of Duke’s triumph. This one required a ripped jersey, a miraculously healing foot and, for lack of a better word, ballsy-ness.

‘He had no business playing’

The doctors said one thing. Caleb Foster heard another. His hearing, of course, is just fine. It’s his mind that told him otherwise.

The junior point guard fractured his foot March 7 against North Carolina, and three days later, Jon Scheyer told reporters Foster would be out for the foreseeable future after undergoing surgery.

“He said two weeks,” Foster started.

“Nobody said ‘two weeks,’” Scheyer interjected with a chuckle. “You heard two weeks.”

Foster arrived at the arena and headed to the locker room on a scooter. He used the scooter to get to the post-game press conference. He kept up with his teammates, too. He’s gotten pretty good at whizzing around on the device, hoping to speed up his recovery.

“Still a little stunned with what happened, to be honest with you guys, because what this guy did, to be honest, he had no business playing tonight,” Scheyer said. “Ninety-nine percent of guys do not come back to play under the circumstances of what’s happened to him. It was incredible the way he willed us. There’s no analytics. There’s no stats that can measure how big this dude’s heart is for what he did.”

Foster received a standing ovation when he entered early in the first half and an even bigger one for a perfect alley-oop to Patrick Ngongba on his first possession. Still, he missed his only shot in the first half, and St. John’s outscored Duke by six in Foster’s seven first-half minutes.

If that had been it, it still would have been a miraculous return and a valiant attempt to help his team. Scheyer envisioned eight to 10 minutes for Foster, who hadn’t even practiced 5-on-5 since the injury.

But then Duke went down 10 early in the second half, throwing the ball all over the place. Big East Player of the Year Zuby Ejiofor tossed down consecutive dunks off consecutive Duke turnovers. The Red Storm’s full-court press had finally become an all-enveloping storm, and the Blue Devils were desperate for an escape.

So, Foster returned. His first basket in nearly three weeks was an open layup off an offensvie rebound. He drove past Ruben Prey for another layup. Then he got into the paint again and made a short jumper over Dylan Darling. Foster said he didn’t feel a certain “I’m back” moment during the game, but his teammates could tell.

“When he scored four times in a row, I was like, ‘Oh, yeah. Yes, sir,’” Cameron Boozer said. “That was definitely the moment.”

Foster even had an open 3 to tie the game moments later. He airballed it. This is not a movie.

Yet with the season on the brink, Foster rescued it. Duke had three turnovers in the first 3:03 of the second half. Foster checked in 15 seconds later, and the Blue Devils had just one turnover the rest of the way. 

“He’s our most experienced guy in these moments,” Scheyer said of the junior. “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.”

‘The green light … to be him’

And veteran-laden St. John’s wouldn’t go away easily. Duke was down two with under nine minutes left when Evans hit a pull-up jumper and turned to hype up the Duke contingent. Scheyer had to remind him he had defense to play, too.

But the offense just kept coming. Evans set a pick, popped out and nailed a 3. On the next possession, he ran the same action but instead pump-faked, drove and somehow got a layup to go while falling down. It’s a sequence that shows his oozing talent. It’s also a sequence he wasn’t previously capable of.

“He’s one of a kind, man,” Scheyer said. “I think one of the things he’s done is used the weapon of the shooting, and that’s opened up his ability to drive and ability to play-make at times.

“He’s got a weapon. For other guys, those may not be good shots. For him, he’s been doing it all year. You give him the green light to shoot those shots and to be him.”

Evans was Him, and Cameron Boozer was Cameron Boozer, bumping and bruising his way to 22 points and 10 rebounds, right in line with his season averages, despite facing a tremendous St. John’s frontcourt. He even turned into a key part of the press break at times and took advantage, getting to the rim time and time again.

“Yessir, downhill on these boys,” Boozer said. “If they wanna press us full court, we gotta punish them every now and then. You gotta pick your moments, but you can’t let them pressure you the whole game. You gotta be aggressive, make them take the pressure off a little bit.”

There have been more exciting one-and-dones at Duke than Boozer, ones who flew higher, dunked harder or had better handles or shooting. Shoo-in No. 1 picks.

There hasn’t been a tougher one. And there hasn’t been a team as tough as this Duke team in a long time.

Boozer looks like he emerged from a fight. He still has two large scars on his right arm from when he got clawed against NC State this season. On the final inbounds play — with Foster finding Boozer to seal the win — a pair of Johnnies ripped his jersey.

“When we first got here in the summer, we weren’t a physical team at all,” Boozer said. “But you learn to find that dog in you, that grit, body ups, chesting people, collisions on the glass. … We got some dogs out here that aren’t backing down from any fight.”

Nothing came easy for Duke. Prey hit four 3-pointers; he had hit three in his previous 21 games combined. Dillon Mitchell, who was 0-for-14 from deep on the season, made one as well. St. John’s made 13 3-pointers; they had been 13-0 this season when making at least eight.

But every time, there was an answer, whether reliable (Boozer), explosive (Evans) or heroic (Foster).

This wasn’t the first time Foster has saved Duke’s season, though. On Thursday, Scheyer revealed Foster came to him in mid-February and, even with a 22-2 record and coming off a 16-point win over Pitt, didn’t like the “mojo” of the group. So he called a team meeting. The Blue Devils haven’t lost since.

“It didn’t feel right,” Cayden Boozer said. “We were sloppy. He was just telling us he’s been here for three years, he understands how delicate the season is. He was just telling us we only have two or three more months together, and if we don’t fix this right now, we’re gonna lose our season.”

It felt that way again Friday night. But then Boozer was there. Evans was there. Foster was there. They had 38 of Duke’s 41 points in the second half. When they could have easily crumbled — and some of Scheyer’s previous teams have crumbled — the Blue Devils surged. They’re now 6-0 in games they trail by 10 at any point.

That’s toughness built on trying times, physical, mental and emotional. They have the X-rays, scooters, ripped jerseys and scars to prove it. Soon enough, if they can keep it up, they might just have the trophies and net clippings to match.