Injuries plague Duke's Elite Eight loss. Coach Jon Scheyer points to battered players battling through pain as key factor in stunning defeat.
No. 1 seed Duke had a 19-point lead, and like with what happened to Hubert Davis and North Carolina, the team blew the large advantage to fall 73-72 to No. 2 seed UConn on Sunday in the Elite Eight.
The Blue Devils took a 44-29 lead into halftime, but the Huskies didn't give up against the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament.
UConn's Braylon Mullins put up a winning three-point shot with 0.3 seconds remaining to down Duke after Cayden Boozer's poor pass became a turnover.
Duke got 22 minutes from center Patrick Ngongba II and 14 minutes from point guard Caleb Foster off the bench. Both starters were battling foot injuries to play on Sunday.
During his postgame news conference, Duke head coach Jon Scheyer suggested injuries played a big role in the defeat.
"I could not be more disappointed and feeling for our guys, at the same time of just trying to process what happened," Scheyer said, via Tar Heel Tribune. "I don’t have the words. I don’t have the words.
"What I do know is literally this team, what each individual player went through just to play the game, I’ve never seen anything like it. What these guys did to have to get ready, their foot injuries, he’s got a black eye, he’s playing the whole game."
Cameron Boozer led the Blue Devils with 27 points, eight rebounds, and four assists against UConn. Boozer backed up Scheyer's comments, saying it took "heart" for Duke to play through injuries.
"Yeah, I’m just super thankful for it all," Boozer said. "I’m hurting right now. We’re all hurting. I wish I could have given more for those guys, Caleb (Foster), Pat (Ngongba), and Maliq (Brown).”
"Everyone’s hurting, dealing with injuries, coming and playing. It took a lot of heart. It took a lot of balls to do that."
For the second season in a row, the Blue Devils came up short of winning a national championship with the best player in college basketball. Cooper Flagg led Duke to the Final Four before losing to Houston.
Boozer got his team to the Elite Eight, but the team wasn't as strong as they were at the beginning of the season.