April 6 (UPI) — Houston Cougars defenders harassed the Duke Blue Devils, holding the cast of NBA prospects to just one made field goal over the final 10:30 to steer a rabid Final Four comeback victory Saturday in San Antonio.
The Cougars, who trailed by as many as 14 points, went on an 11-1 run over the final 74 seconds to steal the 70-67 triumph at the Alamodome. Senior guard L.J. Cryer scored 26 points and made six 3-pointers for the Cougars.
“No one ever loses at anything, as long as you don’t quit,” Cougars coach Kelvin Sampson said on the CBS broadcast. “If you’ve quit, you’ve lost.”
The Cougars (35-4), who extended their national-best 18-game winning streak, will face the Florida Gators (35-4) in the title game Monday in San Antonio.
The Blue Devils (35-4) outshot the Cougars 39.6% to 37.7%. They also held a 42-31 edge in rebounding, but collapsed in clutch moments against the top-ranked Cougars defense.
“We are just resilient,” Cryer said. “We had a game like this earlier in the year, the Kansas game, it reminded me of that game. It’s never over. As long as their is time on the clock, we have to continue to fight. We kept believing and we got it done.”
National Player of the Year Cooper Flagg and the Blue Devils dissected the Cougars defense early on with pinpoint passing and hypnotic rotations.
They went on a 13-3 run to take an 18-9 lead 11 minutes into the game. They added another 13-4 surge to push their advantage to a dozen and led 34-28 at the break.
The Blue Devils made 41.4% of their first-half attempts. The Cougars made just 31% of their first-half shots, but stayed in the game by hitting 45.5% of their 3-point attempts over the first 20 minutes.
Freshman guard Kon Knueppel scored a dozen points in the first half, when the Blue Devils outscored the Cougars 16-6 in the paint.
The Cougars warmed up toward the end of the first half and carried that momentum into the second. Flagg scored 10 of their first 20 points of the half and the Blue Devils went on to increase their lead to 14.
But the Cougars settled, using a 10-0 run to cut the deficit to four with five minutes remaining. The Blue Devils, who went on a cold streak with just one made field goal over a span of more than seven minutes, finally answered on a Flagg 3-pointer with 3:03 remaining. That shot proved to be their last made field goal of the night.
Junior guard Emanuel Sharpe then scored nine-consecutive Cougars points, including a 3-pointer that trimmed the deficit to 67-64 with 32.4 seconds remaining. Sophomore forward Joseph Tugler made a tip-in about seven seconds later to cut the Blue Devils lead to one.
Junior guard Tyrese Proctor missed a free throw on Duke’s next possession. Flagg then picked up a foul, sending J’Wan Roberts to the line. The senior forward made both of his free throws, giving the Cougars their first lead since the first half.
Flagg hit the front of the rim on a jump shot on the following possession. Cryer proceeded to sink two free throws five seconds later, icing the comeback triumph for the Cougars.
“Our thing, in our timeouts, is that we’ve been there before. It’s not like we were down 20,” Sampson said. “It’s not like we were playing great. We felt like if we could get it close enough to put some gang pressure on them, something good could happen.”
Sharp totaled 12 of his 16 points in the second half for the Cougars. Roberts logged 11 points and 12 rebounds in the victory.
Flagg scored a game-high 27 points for the Blue Devils. He also recorded seven rebounds, four assists, three blocks and two steals. Knueppel chipped in 16 points and seven rebounds.
The Cougars will face the Gators in the title game at 8:50 p.m. EDT Monday at the Alamodome. That game will air on CBS.
