Duke led by 19 in the second half of its Elite Eight matchup with UConn, but it takes more than that to kill Dan Hurley in March. The two-time national champion led his team back to its third Final Four in four years with a 73-72 win and a miraculous second-half comeback despite 42 combined points from Cameron and Cayden Boozer.
Hurley is never one to shy away from the microphone, and in the postgame on-court interview with CBS’s Tracy Wolfson, he made sure to carve out a few words to praise Duke’s twin tandem after what could be their final game together, and is certainly their final game together at Duke.
“We were so courageous today, and we just fought so hard,” a sweaty Hurley told Wolfson. “Jon (Scheyer)’s got an incredible team. Jon is an amazing coach, and those Boozer boys are, I think, the toughest people I’ve ever shared the court with.”
Dan Hurley heaps praise on Cameron and Cayden Boozer after ripping their hearts out in the Elite Eight
Duke and UConn have a history of meeting in big-time moments in the NCAA Tournament, and it often goes down to the wire. In the 1990 Regional Final, Christian Laettner hit a buzzer-beater to send Duke to the Final Four over the Huskies, and now 36 years later, Braylon Mullins has returned the favor, capping off an incredible comeback.
As for how Duke built its lead, it started with fantastic performances from both Boozer twins. For much of the first half, Cameron and Cayden alone were outscoring UConn’s entire team. Cameron, even with a black eye that continued to swell throughout the game after catching an elbow, did everything he could, including scoring a huge bucket with 38 seconds remaining to give the Blue Devils a 72-69 advantage.
Cayden has been thrust into a massive role in the NCAA Tournament due to starting point guard Caleb Foster’s foot injury that he suffered in the final game of the regular season. Even with Foster back for the last two games, Boozer has remained a starter, and he had his best game of the tournament against the Huskies, until he didn’t.
It was Cayden Boozer’s senseless turnover in the final seconds that allowed Mullins to hit the game-winning shot. All the freshmen had to do was hold the ball and wait for the UConn defenders, who had no other way to stop the clock, to foul him. Instead, he attempted a risky pass over two defenders' heads that went the other way for the score.
Now, with Cameron, the presumptive national player of the year, heading to the NBA to become a top-five pick, the last memory of the Boozer twins together at Duke will be Cayden’s turnover and Hurley’s genuine, but painful, parting remarks.