As Duke’s double-digit lead dwindled down the stretch of Sunday night’s 73-72 loss to UConn in the Elite Eight, former Blue Devils coach and program legend Mike Krzyzewski watched from afar knowing the NCAA Tournament’s No. 1 overall seed needed to deliver a knockout blow — or else.
Nursing a two-point lead with the ball and 10 seconds away from reaching the Final Four, Duke point guard Cayden Boozer tried a pass over the top of two defenders near midcourt instead of dribbling out of a trap, leading to Braylon Mullins’ game-winner for the Huskies with 0.4 seconds to play.
An all-time collapse from one of Duke’s best teams.
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“It was heartbreaking, I’m telling you,” Krzyzewski said this week on the Pat McAfee Show. “It was a great, great basketball game, not a good one. It was a great game. I could not fall asleep (last night). You’re thinking about all these individual kids and how you’re going to take care of them. Just such great empathy for our guys. … obviously, I’m a Duke guy, and I have concern for them because it’s a tough one to get over.”
Krzyzewski, 79, won five national championships and led Duke to 13 Final Four appearances during his illustrious tenure as coach. He retired after the 2021-22 season, but has stayed close to the program since as a sounding board for coach Jon Scheyer, one of his former All-American players.
The Blue Devils led the Huskies by 19 at one point before falling victim to a well-executed defensive stop by UConn after Silas Demary deflected the pass from Boozer in the final seconds. Demary made a quick pass to Alex Karaban, who tossed it back to Mullins for the open look from 33 feet.
Boozer blamed himself after the loss, acknowledging his ill-fated turnover leading to Mullins’ heroics that doomed the March Madness favorites.
Scheyer said he didn’t have words in the aftermath of the defeat.
“Jon’s primary concern is making sure he takes care of those young men,” Krzyzewski said. “They had a magnificent season, one of the best ever, and you lose, it’s brutal. It’s so abrupt. The joy to agony. He (needs) to for sure embrace collective responsibility; you win and you lose together, so no one individual player bears the burden of that alone.
“I felt so bad for Cayden Boozer. The interviews afterwards … one is he was man enough to do the interviews, and he took individual responsibility for it. Hopefully, I’m sure, his teammates and coaches hugged him afterwards and said it wasn’t one play. We turned the ball over too much because of Connecticut’s defense. When you get live-ball turnovers, you have numerical superiority at the offensive end.”
Krzyzewski led the Blue Devils for 42 seasons and battled through his share of memorable losses over that stretch, including setbacks to North Carolina in upset fashion during his final game at Cameron Indoor Stadium and in the 2022 Final Four.
However, Krzyzewski said one of the greatest joys of his coaching career was going through the highs and lows of victories and defeats with players and being part of the action. Perhaps Scheyer and his staff, coming off consecutive disappointing finishes in the NCAA Tournament, can use these unforgettable defeats as motivation in the coming seasons at one of college basketball’s blueblood programs.
