2 days ago
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SAN ANTONIO -- Inside the searing soundlessness of the Duke locker room, the echo of a doorway slamming unopen intermittently rippled through. Every clip a subordinate oregon unit subordinate ducked into the adjacent coaches locker room, the bang of the doorway reverberated similar a siren successful a inactive night.
There's thing to hole a squad for the affectional spiral that comes with squandering a six-point pb successful the last 35 seconds. After Houston scored the game's last 9 points successful 33 seconds to stun Duke 70-67 connected Saturday nighttime successful the Final Four, a hush accompanied the Blue Devils' attempts to process it.
Players wandered softly to drawback slices of pizza from the 10 boxes stacked precocious connected a Powerade cooler. They stared down astatine their phones to debar oculus interaction with the lingering media. One walk-on returned from the ablution with tears successful his eyes. Another wrote successful a diary with a pencil.
They replayed however someway a six-point pb could vanish successful little than 20 seconds. But adjacent aft a spree of inbounds failures, misses and intelligence gaffes, 2 cardinal moments successful the last 20 seconds from prima freshman Cooper Flagg -- a foul and a miss -- capped the stunning meltdown.
Flagg's missed 12-foot jumper, with Duke trailing by 1 point, volition beryllium the play that volition unrecorded everlastingly successful replays. Duke had a accidental to instrumentality power of the crippled and halt the hemorrhaging; a timeout was called with 17 seconds left. The Blue Devils cleared retired for Flagg, who got an isolation matchup with Houston sixth-year elder J'Wan Roberts. Flagg pulled up from wrong the lane and faded distant from the outstretched arms of the 6-foot-8 Roberts. The changeable caromed disconnected the beforehand rim.
"It's the play Coach drew up," Flagg said. "Took it into the paint. Thought I got my feet set, roseate up. Left it short, obviously. A changeable I'm consenting to unrecorded with successful the scenario."
There was nary second-guessing the play oregon the look. It simply didn't spell in.
"Cooper is the champion subordinate successful the country, and erstwhile you get the champion subordinate successful the state successful the spot helium likes, it's truly arsenic elemental arsenic that. We got precisely what we wanted," Duke elder Sion James said. "Sometimes shots spell down; sometimes they don't. That 1 didn't."
Tougher to explicate was Flagg's over-the-back foul connected Roberts erstwhile Duke's Tyrese Proctor missed the beforehand extremity of a one-and-one with 20 seconds remaining. Duke led 67-66 astatine the time, and Flagg got whistled for a foul connected Roberts, who intelligibly had Flagg boxed out.
The validity of the telephone volition agelong beryllium debated connected barstools astatine the Final Four, but Flagg enactment himself and Duke successful a susceptible presumption by appearing to clasp down Roberts' near limb and getting whistled for it.
Roberts, a 63% escaped propulsion shooter, changed the crippled by making some ends of the one-and-one, pushing Houston to a 68-67 pb and mounting the signifier for Flagg's last foray.
For a programme that holds a defiant representation of grit and toughness, it's fitting that Houston's travel to the nationalist rubric crippled featured a game-changing boxout. Kellen Sampson, the Houston adjunct and lad of Cougars manager Kelvin Sampson, broke retired 1 of his father's folksy hoops sayings to sum up the moment.
"Discipline gets you bushed much than large helps you win," Kellen Sampson said. "I've astir apt heard it a 100 cardinal times increasing up. Look, the much disciplined you are, the much that you tin find yourself doing small tiny things that's going to win."
"A big-time escaped propulsion blockout was precisely what was needed," helium added.
Regardless of immoderate statement implicit the call, Flagg's foul enactment Duke successful a abruptly unthinkable position. The Blue Devils went from a six-point pb with 35 seconds near to trailing by 1 astatine the 19-second mark. The foul was the last swing: up 1 to down one.
The cardinal for Houston came from leaving Roberts unsocial connected Flagg, thing it didn't bash aboriginal successful the game. Flagg picked the Cougars isolated with his passing, and they made an accommodation to fto Roberts grip the matchup by himself.
"We said present astatine halftime we're going to spot J'Wan," Sampson said. "He's doing a heck of a occupation successful his one-on-ones against Cooper. We're astir apt over-helping.
"You person the No. 1 defence successful America for a reason. Trust him."
Houston's defenders were their marauding selves each night, with the astir jarring statistic successful the container people being that of Duke halfway Khaman Maluach erstwhile helium failed to drawback a rebound successful much than 21 minutes of play and ending the nighttime with a plus-minus of -20.
Roberts' last salvo was getting a pugnacious contention connected Flagg's imaginable crippled winner.
"I thought helium did an awesome occupation of getting his hands up precocious capable that it wasn't an casual look," Sampson said of Roberts. "Some pugnacious shots each night."
Flagg finished the contention with 27 points, shooting 8-for-19 from the field. He got small help, arsenic Duke had lone 1 tract extremity implicit the game's past 10:30.
He rode backmost to the Duke locker country successful a play cart astatine 11:54 p.m., staring into abstraction with a towel wrapped astir his neck. Flagg entered the cone of soundlessness abruptly facing the extremity of a play and apt a assemblage career.
Three minutes later, Duke manager Jon Scheyer rode past with his woman adjacent to him and diversion manager Nina King sitting successful the back. After starring by arsenic overmuch arsenic 14, Duke had conscionable coughed up the fifth-biggest pb successful Final Four history. The nonaccomplishment volition echo, conscionable similar that slamming door, agelong into the offseason.
"I support going back, we're up six with nether a infinitesimal to go," Scheyer said.
"We conscionable person to decorativeness the deal."
