{"id":215281,"date":"2026-03-22T09:51:30","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T09:51:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/215281\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T09:51:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T09:51:30","slug":"boozer-no-1-overall-seed-duke-get-rolling-after-halftime-to-beat-tcu-81-58-and-reach-sweet-16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/215281\/","title":{"rendered":"Boozer, No. 1 overall seed Duke get rolling after halftime to beat TCU 81-58 and reach Sweet 16"},"content":{"rendered":"

GREENVILLE, S.C. — Cameron Boozer shook off a quiet first half to finish with 19 points and No. 1 overall seed Duke<\/a> shot 61.5% after halftime Saturday to pull away from TCU for an 81-58 win in a physical second-round game at the NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n

The freshman voted a unanimous first-team Associated Press All-American earlier this week had just two points and missed his only shot in the first half. But he scored three times during the 11-0 second-half burst – twice on high-low feeds from fellow big Patrick Ngongba II in his return to the lineup – as Duke (34-2) finally shook free of the ninth-seeded Horned Frogs (23-12).<\/p>\n

That 11-0 run was the capper on a 26-6 surge that spanned nearly nine minutes, with TCU missing 15 of 17 shots after Jayden Pierre’s layup tied it at 44-all with 13:56 left.<\/p>\n

The Blue Devils opened the tournament with an uncharacteristically shaky performance that had them flirting with only the third 16-versus-1 upset against Siena. This time, they trailed only briefly in the second half on the way to the Sweet 16 for the third straight season under Jon Scheyer, earning a trip to the nation’s capital to face the St. John’s-Kansas winner Friday.<\/p>\n

Micah Robinson scored 18 points for TCU, which beat eighth-seeded Ohio State on Xavier Edmonds’ basket in the final seconds of the first round. But the Horned Frogs couldn’t sustain a quality first 25 minutes against the Blue Devils, shooting just 10 for 38 after halftime and 33.3% for the game.<\/p>\n

The game also had some chippy and testy vibes. TCU’s David Punch took an elbow from Boozer on a drive and came up with a bloody nose that resulted in a flagrant-foul call on review, and there was a double-flagrant foul when Ngongba and Edmonds ended up tangled and fell to the floor.<\/p>\n

Coach Jamie Dixon also got a technical foul in the second half for complaining in frustration after there was no goaltending call on a block from behind by Maliq Brown.<\/p>\n

TCU was playing in its fourth tournament in five years under Dixon, but the Horned Frogs fell short of a chance to reach the second weekend of the tournament for the first time in the modern era since expansion to 64 teams in 1985.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GREENVILLE, S.C. — Cameron Boozer shook off a quiet first half to finish with 19 points and No.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[84160,4857,7000,116,118,117,4862,20370,783],"class_list":["post-215281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-84160","tag-duke-blue-devils","tag-espn","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news","tag-mens-college-basketball","tag-priority","tag-tcu-horned-frogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}