Legendary Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski could not sleep after the Blue Devils’ “heartbreaking” buzzer-beating loss to UConn in the Elite Eight on Sunday, he said on “The Pat McAfee Show.”
Duke missed the Final Four after Cayden Boozer turned the ball over with less than six seconds left in the game, leading to a Braylon Mullins 3-pointer, which gave the Huskies a 73-72 lead with just 0.4 seconds on the clock.
After the game, Boozer took responsibility for the loss, saying, “I could’ve been stronger with the ball, and I let our team down.” Speaking Monday, Krzyzewski pushed back on Boozer’s self-critique.
“It wasn’t one play, I’m telling you. We turned the ball over too much because of Connecticut’s defense,” Krzyzewski said. “When you get live-ball turnovers, you have numerical superiority going down to the offensive end just to go take it to the hole better. And they got their offensive mojo going.”
The Blue Devils turned the ball over 13 times, and the Huskies turned those opportunities into 20 points.
Krzyzewski, who won five NCAA national championships and three Olympic gold medals in his coaching career, commended Boozer for appearing at the postgame media scrum despite his late turnover. Krzyzewski also shared his thoughts on how Duke coach John Scheyer can help his team recover from the defeat.
“Jon’s primary concern is making sure he takes care of those young men. They had a magnificent season, one of the best ever,” Krzyzewski said. “And you lose, it’s so abrupt and from, you know, the joy to the 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.”
This is the second season Scheyer’s team has lost in the Elite Eight since he took over from Krzyzewski before the 2022-23 season. Last year’s squad reached the Final Four but fell to Houston after surrendering a 14-point lead in the game’s closing minutes.
“(UConn was) a different team defensively in the second half and (were) seeing the ball go in,” Krzyzewski said of Duke’s blown lead this year. “They were aggressive offensively then, and (they) got Duke into some foul trouble. They saw free throws go in, and they saw some layups go in. And that gave them the momentum. They were not going to get knocked out.”
Krzyzewski coached Duke for 42 seasons, ending his career with a Final Four run in 2022.
“For my entire time as a coach, I loved being in the moments of those players. The highs, the lows — they kept you young. Because you were in their moment. You weren’t watching their moment; you were in their moment,” Krzyzewski said.
“That’s the kind of thing I kind of relived (Sunday) night. Even though it was bad, it felt good to be in that moment with our team.”
