Was it a Final Four preview? An early look at the National Championship Game?
Who cares.
It was as awesome of a college basketball game that you could find in mid-February between two of the best teams in the country and the Duke basketball team was able to beat No. 1 Michigan, 68-63, in Washington D.C.
The game had a little bit of everything, but the difference was that Cameron Boozer played for the No. 3 Blue Devils (25-2, 13-1 ACC).
Boozer landed his fourth foul with 8:42 remaining and Duke leading by seven, 53-46, but the Wolverines couldn’t make a deep push into its deficit. When the Blue Devil superstar returned, it was a five-point game with 4:47 left and he took over.
Boozer scored seven straight points to get Duke to the finish line, finishing the game with 18 points, 10 rebounds, and seven assists.
However, before he started his takeover, the Wolverines cut the lead to one, 57-56, and forced Jon Scheyer to call a timeout. Scheyer drew up a beautiful alley-oop to Isaiah Evans off a backscreen that pushed the lead to three.
Elliot Cadeau missed a point-blank layup on Michigan’s (25-2, 15-1 Big Ten) next possession which eventually led to Cam Boozer getting to the free throw line. His 3-pointer, which was his only triple of the game, with 1:55 left pushed the lead to six, 64-58, as the Wolverines had no answer for him.
The game started with a fast tempo, playing right into the hands of Michigan, who built a five-point lead early. Standout forward Yaxel Lendeborg had 16 points in the first half on 6-of-9 shooting but only managed five points after halftime with five of his six attempts coming from 3-point range.
Wolverines point guard Elliot Cadeau was a trainwreck until the final 90 seconds where he scored five of his eight points. The North Carolina transfer was 1-for-8 from the floor and 1-for-6 from 3-point range.
The victory could move Duke to the No. 1 ranking in the AP Top 25 on Monday as well as the projected No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament after trailing Michigan by a seed when the selection committee announced its Top-16 seeds earlier in the afternoon.
The Blue Devils will head back on the road Tuesday night (7:00 p.m. ET, ESPN) for a meeting against Notre Dame (12-15, 3-11 ACC) with four regular season games remaining.