For a half Tuesday night, No. 4 Duke look poised for a runaway win against 15th-ranked and reigning champion Florida.<\/p>\n
But Florida punched back from its lowest scoring half of the season and a 36-24 deficit at the break to tie the game at 59 in the game’s final three minutes. From there it was a back-and-forth thriller that featured two lead changes in the final 35 seconds before Duke secured a 67-66 win.<\/p>\n
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As has been the case for most of the season, star freshman Cameron Boozer led the way.<\/p>\n
Boozer 3 sparks frantic finish in Durham<\/p>\n
Boozer finished with a game-high 29 points to go with 6 rebounds and 2 assists. And when Florida tied the game for the first time in the second half after trailing since halftime, it was Boozer who came up with the response.<\/p>\n
With 2:10 remaining, Boozer took a pass on the wing Patrick Ngongba. He immediately pulled up for a 3 to put the Blue Devils back on top, 62-59.<\/p>\n
But Florida wasn’t finished.<\/p>\n
The Gators answered with points on three consecutive possessions, capped by a Boogie Fland 3 with 35 seconds remaining that gave Florida a 66-64 lead, its first since 13-12 early in the first half.<\/p>\n
But Isaiah Evans got the last laugh for the Blue Devils.<\/p>\n
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The sophomore guard on a roster filled with freshman stars pulled up for his own go-ahead 3 for a 67-66 Duke lead out of a Blue Devils timeout.<\/p>\n
Fland dribbled the ball off his foot on the other end for a turnover, and Duke ensured that there would be no miracle finish for Florida.<\/p>\n
Florida mounted its rally behind a 24-points, 6-rebound effort from All-SEC forward Thomas Haugh, who was the best player on the floor Tuesday night not named Boozer. And its imposing front line featuring preseason All-American Alex Condon controlled the glass with a 44-33 rebounding advantage.<\/p>\n
But Duke was the more efficient team with fewer looks at the basket as it outshot Florida from the floor 45% to 37%. And with the game on the line, Duke’s defense forced two turnovers on Florida’s final two possessions to secure the win.<\/p>\n
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With the win, Duke improved to 9-0 and secured its third win over a ranked opponent this season that also includes victories over No. 24 Kansas and No. 22 Arkansas. Up next is perhaps its toughest test yet in a road matchup at No. 7 Michigan State on Saturday.<\/p>\n
But for now, the Blue Devils can celebrate a win over the reigning champs in a matchup of two teams that advanced to last season’s Final Four.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For a half Tuesday night, No. 4 Duke look poised for a runaway win against 15th-ranked and reigning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3107,3848,40227,3109,39937,21852,40228,28,30,29,40229,5856,3115],"class_list":{"0":"post-69070","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-alex-condon","9":"tag-arkansas","10":"tag-blue-devils","11":"tag-boogie-fland","12":"tag-cameron-boozer","13":"tag-duke","14":"tag-duke-mens-basketball","15":"tag-florida","16":"tag-florida-headlines","17":"tag-florida-news","18":"tag-isaiah-evans","19":"tag-kansas","20":"tag-thomas-haugh"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}