Duke head coach Jon Scheyer praises Cayden Boozer's resilience and belief, highlighting his crucial mental toughness ahead of the ACC Tournament championship game.
The game was pretty much over by halftime when the Blue Devils took a 41-22 lead after the first 20 minutes. Duke dominated in key categories, shooting 46 percent from the floor to Clemson's 33 percent.
The Blue Devils won the rebounding battle 41-27 and the turnover battle 11-6. The Boozer brothers led the charge.
Cameron Boozer led Duke with 24 points, 14 rebounds and five assists. Cayden Boozer added 16 points, three rebounds and one assist.
During his postgame news conference, Duke head coach Jon Scheyer praised Cayden for his efforts against Clemson and said the team believes in the freshman before taking on No. 10 Virginia on Saturday night.
"I just want to tell him just how much I believe in him," Scheyer said, via 247Sports. "And to handle different things that are thrown your way as a freshman, you haven't seen everything.
"I just want to help prepare him for what other teams can do. But his toughness, his mental toughness is not something you can teach. He had that on his own."
The Seminloes limited Cayden to nine points, three rebounds and one assist on 22 minutes in Duke's 80-79 win in the ACC Tournament quarterfinal on Thursday night.
Scheyer talked to Cayden before Friday night's game and liked the guard's aggressiveness.
"Just talked to him today," Scheyer said. "He's been a big-time player his whole life, and credit Florida State for doing something different. I've coached really, really good players where they have different scouting. They try to not guard.
"They can do different things, and it can knock you back at first. But what he did in game yesterday to come back, he had a big three-point play, he hit our last basket, the offensive rebound. Today I just loved his assertiveness right away."
Cameron went off for 18 points, nine rebounds and four assists in Duke's 77-51 win over Virginia on Feb. 28. Cayden came off the bench to add six points and one assist on 22 minutes.
With Caleb Foster not expected to return until at least the Final Four due to a broken right foot, Duke will need Cayden to have more games like he did on Friday night in the NCAA Tournament.