SAN ANTONIO The Duke locker room was wrapped in a heavy, eerie silence Saturday night. Every so often, the sharp slam of a door—players and staff slipping into the adjacent coaches' room—cut through the stillness like a siren in the night.
There’s no way to prepare for the kind of emotional free fall that follows a collapse like Duke’s. The Blue Devils let a six-point lead vanish in the final 35 seconds, giving up the game’s last nine points as Houston surged to a shocking 70-67 win in the Final Four.
Shell-shocked, the players milled around quietly, grabbing cold slices of pizza from stacked boxes on top of a Powerade cooler. Most stared at their phones, avoiding eye contact with each other and the waiting media. One walk-on was crying when he got out of the showers. Another person sat in a corner and quietly wrote in a journal.
Although the breakdown happened quickly, it was significant. Everything fell apart in just over a minute—turnovers, missed shots, mental mistakes—and star freshman Cooper Flagg's two pivotal points, a foul and a miss, solidified the sting.
Tyrese Proctor missed the front end of a one-and-one with 20 seconds remaining and Duke leading by one.
Flagg was penalized after Houston's J'Wan Roberts had effectively boxed him out, and Flagg was called for an over-the-back foul. The call will be debated for years, but Flagg's positioning made it hard to give the impression that he was right.
Houston took a 68-67 lead after Roberts calmly hit both free throws, shooting 63%. Then came Flagg’s moment. Duke cleared out for him 17 seconds after a timeout. He isolated Roberts, drove into the lane, and pulled up for a 12-footer—a shot he’s made countless times. It struck the front rim this time.
Flagg said quietly, "It's the shot Coach made." I arrived at my spot and felt good about it. Just left it short.”
There was no blame from teammates. Senior Sion James declared, "He is the best player in the country"." We received precisely what we desired. That’s a shot he’ll make nine out of ten times. It didn't fall tonight. Houston's discipline made it official. As Roberts boxed out and converted at the line, the Cougars embodied the gritty, physical defense that’s defined their season. “Discipline gets you beat more than great helps you win,” said Houston assistant Kellen Sampson, quoting his father and head coach, Kelvin Sampson. “That blackout was everything.”
Trust in Roberts grew during the game. Early on, Houston sent help to Flagg, who picked the defense apart with passes. But by halftime, the Cougars decided to trust their sixth-year forward one-on-one.
“We told J’Wan, ‘You’ve got this,’” said Sampson. “He rose to the moment.”
Flagg scored 27 points on 8-of-19 shooting but got little support down the stretch. Duke managed just one field goal in the final 10 and a half minutes. Center Khaman Maluach didn’t grab a single rebound in 21 minutes, finishing with a -20 plus-minus.
At 11:54 p.m., Flagg rode back to the locker room on a golf cart, towel draped around his neck, eyes blank, staring into the void of what might have been the end of his college career. Three minutes later, head coach Jon Scheyer followed with his wife and athletic director Nina King.
Duke was once leading by 14. Now, they had just let slip the fifth-largest blown lead in Final Four history.
“I keep going back to it,” Scheyer said. "With less than a minute remaining, we are six ahead. We just have to finish the deal.”
Instead, all that remained was the echo of that slamming door, a sound sure to linger long into Duke’s offseason.