Down the Rabbit Hole, Into the Storm

Down the Rabbit Hole, Into the Storm

By Jason Safford | Relentless Redstorm

The worst part still comes before the tip.

But now it feels different.

Now it feels like falling.

Like Alice stepping forward and not seeing the ground.
Like Dorothy watching the sky turn green and knowing the storm has already chosen her.

That is what this game feels like.

Not a matchup.
A drop.

And every St. John’s fan feels it in the chest.

Because Duke is not just a team tonight. Duke is the size of the world when you are small. Duke is the long shadow on the court before the ball even hits the floor. Duke is Goliath standing there, calm, certain, waiting for someone to try something foolish.

And here comes St. John’s.

Not foolish.

But willing.

Somewhere in the upper level, a kid in a red hoodie grips the rail so tight his hands hurt.
He does not know the numbers.
But he knows how this feels.

This is how it always starts on the blacktop.

One side looks bigger. Cleaner. Built right.
The other side looks like it came to fight the game, not just play it.

And someone on the sideline leans in and says it low, like a warning.

You sure you want this run?

Because once the ball goes up, there is no going back. No soft place. No easy reset.

This is the road now.

And every story you ever learned as a kid shows up right here.

Alice falls.
Dorothy runs.
Spartacus stands.
David picks up a stone.

And out on that floor, one team will live inside the story and one team will get swallowed by it.

Duke walks in like the favorite. Clean lines. Strong numbers. Order in everything they do. They defend without panic. They rebound without mistake. They move like a team that expects the world to behave.

But the game never belongs to order for long.

There is always the part where things break.

The whistle that feels late.
A bounce that kicks the other way.
That moment Boozer scores anyway, through contact, through effort, through hope.

This is when the building shifts.

When the floor tilts.

And then there is the place St. John’s knows best.

Not pretty.
Not neat.
Uncontrolled.

Hands on the ball.
Bodies on the glass.
A guard jumping a pass and the ball skipping loose and someone diving on hardwood like it is asphalt in July.

That is where belief turns into something you can touch.

Here is the part nobody wants to say out loud.

St. John’s can do everything right tonight and still walk off that floor beaten.

That is what makes this real.

Duke does not need chaos to win.
They do not need to panic.
Duke can stay clean and still end this.

So belief alone will not be enough.

It has to be something stronger.

Work that shows up when belief gets quiet.

Rick Pitino built this team for that moment.

He did not build them to be comfortable.
They were built to survive the drop.

Zuby Ejiofor knows that feeling.

You can see it before the ball even comes off the rim. He does not wait. He moves. Two hands. Always two hands. That is not skill. That is memory.

Bryce Hopkins plays like a man running through a storm he stopped trying to control. He attacks because there is no other choice left that makes sense.

Dillon Mitchell does the work nobody cheers for until it wins the game. Switch. Recover. Rebound. Again.

And Dylan Darling knows something now.

He knows what it feels like when the game leaves you.
No points. No rhythm. No voice in the game.

And then one lane opens.

One step.
One finish.
Game over.

That is not a stat.

That is a story.

And stories matter now.

Because Duke will test the part of St. John’s that numbers cannot measure.

What do you do when the storm hits first?

Dorothy did not beat the tornado.
She went through it.

Alice did not climb out.
She kept falling until the world made new sense.

Spartacus did not win because he was bigger.
He won because he refused to kneel.

David did not match Goliath.
He chose a different fight.

That is the only path St. John’s has tonight.

Do not play Duke’s game.

Change the story.

Let it get loud.
Build it fast.
Make it hurt.

Turn every possession into a question Duke does not want to answer twice.

Can you handle this pace?
Will you handle this pressure?
Do you handle this game when it stops being clean?

Because if the game stays clean, Duke will win.

But if the game turns. If it becomes something else. If it becomes the kind of run where the ball does not bounce right and the crowd starts to lean forward and the favorite starts to feel the clock instead of control.

Then something opens.

Not certainty.

Never certainty.

But belief that has been tested and did not break.

You can feel it already.

In the streets.
At the bars.
Through the quiet spaces before the noise.

Nobody knows how this ends.

That is the truth.

Here is the elevated, sharpened ending—aligned to David standing as Spartacus against Goliath, with tighter cadence, deeper inevitability, and a harder emotional landing:

Not the polite truth.
The real one.

Duke can take this game and make it look easy.

Or St. John’s can step onto that floor with a stone in its hand and a refusal in its chest.

David did not wait to be chosen.
Spartacus did not ask for permission.

They stood anyway.

The ball will go up.
The waiting will end.
The fear will have to play too.

And when the floor tilts, when the noise rises, when the game stops making sense.

That is the moment.

Not for skill.
Not for comfort.

For defiance.

Because there will be no safe version of this story.

Only the one where you stand and take it.

Or the one where you get taken.

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