SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Houston’s suffocating defense wiped away a 14-point deficit over the final eight minutes and erased Cooper Flagg and Duke’s title hopes Saturday night in a 70-67 stunner over the Blue Devils at the Final Four.
Duke made a grand total of one field goal over the last 10 1/2 minutes of this game. The second-to-last attempt during its game-ending 1-for-9 stretch was a step-back jumper in the lane by Flagg that J’Wan Roberts disrupted. The last was a desperation heave by Tyrese Proctor that caught nothing at the buzzer.
It was Roberts’ two free throws with 19.6 seconds left that gave the Cougars their first lead since 6-5. LJ Cryer, who led Houston with 26 points, made two more to push the lead to three. It was Houston’s biggest lead of the night.
“No one ever loses at anything as long as you don’t quit,” coach Kelvin Sampson said. “If you quit, you’ve lost.”
The Cougars (35-4), who have never won a title, not even in the days of Phi Slama Jamma, will play Florida on Monday night for the championship.
Florida’s 79-73 win over Auburn in the early game was a free-flowing hoopsfest. This one would’ve looked perfect on a cracked blacktop and a court with chain-link nets.
That’s just how Houston likes it. It closed the game on a 9-0 run over the final 74 seconds, and though Flagg finished with 27 points, he did it on 8-for-19 shooting and never got a good look after his 3 at the 3:02 mark put the Blue Devils (35-4) up by nine.
It looked over at that point. Houston was just getting started.
“We had a feeling that we could still win this game,” Roberts said.
A team that prides itself on getting three stops in a row — calling the third one the “kill stop” — allowed a measly three free throws down the stretch. One came when Joseph Tugler got a technical for batting the ball from a Duke player’s hand as he was trying to throw an inbounds pass.
That didn’t make it any better for Duke.
On the possession following the technical, Tugler rejected Kon Knueppel (16 points), then Emanuel Sharp (16 points) made a 3 to cut the deficit to three.
Mylik Wilson stole the next inbounds pass and missed a game-tying 3, but Tugler tipped it in to cut the deficit to one.
Proctor missed the front end of a 1-and-1 with 20 seconds left to set the stage for the Roberts free throws.
Duke’s slow walk off the court came through a phalanx of Houston fans who waved goodbye to Flagg, who will likely be off to the NBA as the first pick in the draft.
Houston finished with six steals and six blocked shots, including four from Tugler, who might be the best shot blocker this program has seen since Hakeem Olajuwon, who was on hand at the Alamodome to see the program’s first trip to the final since 1984.
Big win for AI
The huge comeback also netted a $1 million win for artificial intelligence. An AI disruptor bet a professional gambler that his program could do a better March Madness bracket, and it all came down to the Duke-Houston game.
Even if the Houston loses in the final, the AI bracket will get more points in the contest and the disruptor, Alan Levy, will pocket the million.
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