SAN ANTONIO — Many games die at 0:00 and then fizzle from the national consciousness, but Houston vs. Duke in early April 2025 just began a vibrant life sure to elongate toward imperishable. It will breathe well into bracketed yonder in chatter and in rehash as a Final Four outlier and a damned wonder. Reminiscers might ask whether any Final Four game ever matched it in the category of dumbfounding. They might struggle to name any facsimile.
It will sit like a smirking anvil in the coming years of Duke men’s basketball, as it would for any team that lost, 70-67, in a national semifinal after leading 59-45 with 8:05 left, 64-55 with 2:10 left and 67-61 with 35 seconds left. It will howl for the way Duke and freshman star Cooper Flagg soared toward Monday night but then turned into Icarus, with Flagg’s 27 points, seven rebounds, four assists and three blocks somehow distilling to one desperate turnaround in the paint that thudded off the front rim with eight seconds left and shock taking hold. And the game will serve as a reference point in the early career of Jon Scheyer, the fantastic 37-year-old Duke coach who succeeded Mike Krzyzewski in 2022 and who on Saturday nearing midnight used the words “heartbreaking,” “heartbreaking” (again), “a lot of pain,” “incredibly disappointing,” “heartbroken” and “an inch from the championship game.”
Mostly, though, Houston vs. Duke should stand — and stand, and stand — as an epitome of the first 11 seasons of Coach Kelvin Sampson and his molding of Houston into a widely recognized bastion of toughness. For as the 69-year-old will grace a closing Monday night for the first time in a toiling career that stretches through four Division I programs clear back to 1981-82 at Montana Tech, he will do so because his players took a tepid, groggy Alamodome and sprinkled it with a disbelief that seemed to glaze over everyone but themselves. They climbed and slipped and climbed and slipped and climbed until somehow, with 19 seconds left, at the end of a gobsmacking 14-second span of turnaround, they nudged ahead for the first time since 6-5 on two swished free throws from J’Wan Roberts. He is the guy who had gone 3 for 8 from the foul line in Houston’s loss to Duke in the 2024 Sweet 16, then made sure to stand alone and make 150 free throws every day since last June 2.
“Quitting is not part of the deal,” Sampson said.
Yeah, that did seem clear.
The version of not quitting Houston just displayed on its stunning path to playing Florida on Monday night should dominate the memory banks. It looked and felt swarming, even by Houston standards. It turned up in a 42-31 rebounding advantage, in 18 offensive rebounds, and in surges of defensive energy that saw a Duke team of habitually gorgeous offense spend the last 10½ minutes scrounging for nine points and one lonely field goal. It amplified in late drives to the basket, such as by Emanuel Sharp, who had seven of his 16 points in the closing 87 seconds. It crested when Houston’s energy and killjoy prowess made even Duke’s inbounds passes look panicky.
Then, here went its ultimate effect: Within the dizzying 14 seconds from 0:33 left to 0:19, Houston went from a six-point deficit to a one-point lead. The scoreboard, then 68-67, looked like you’re-joking. “As long as there’s time on the clock,” said Houston’s L.J. Cryer after his 26 points and 6-for-9 shooting from downtown, “we’re going to go out there and give it our all.”
The lead Duke had held ever since the 14:42 mark of the first half began its final erosion with 47 seconds left just after Duke freshman Kon Knueppel, strong with 16 points, made one of his fearless drives whereupon Houston’s Joseph Tugler made one of his four blocked shots. Duke led 67-61. Houston came down. Something very akin to all hell was about to break loose even if 68,252 on hand remained unsuspecting.
At 33 seconds, Sharp positioned himself on the right wing, paused a bit to get set up and launched a three-point shot that sang. That made things 67-64. A sequence of inbounding adventures followed and wound up with a collaborative Houston steal that wound up in Mylik Wilson’s hands. Wilson shot a three-pointer from the right that missed, but Tugler rose from the left of the rim to slam it down. That made things 67-66. Tyrese Proctor missed the front end of a one-and-one with 20 seconds left, and Flagg fouled Roberts on the rebound. Now Roberts, the graduate student and sixth-year Houston player who saw two minutes of playing time as a greenhorn in Houston’s Final Four berth of 2021, marched down to fulfill the unthinkable.
“To tell you the honest truth,” he said, “going up to the free throw line, I wasn’t really nervous at all just because of the work that I put in just believing and trusting myself.”
He made it and he made it, and the red quadrant of the stadium bounced and exulted with the feelings only absurd comebacks can generate. Flagg missed that turnaround, presumably his last shot before the NBA, “a shot I’m willing to live with in the scenario,” he said — and he concluded with gloom and tears after “an incredible season, incredible people, incredible relationships that I’m going to have for the rest of my life.” He had just heard the only college coach he’ll ever have say, in the locker room, to the team, “I’m sorry,” because, Scheyer said, “We truly believed we were going to be playing Monday night.” He also said, “I’m sure there’s a lot more I could have done to help our guys at the end there.”
His team had reached this Final Four while treating any interested witnesses to some of the most elegant basketball going — a credit to the sport, really. It had staged a smorgasbord of efficiency and collaboration toward making 127 of 226 shots in its first four tournament games (56.2 percent), including 43 of 91 three-point shots (47.3). At the same time, the beauty of all those baskets could shadow a readiness to rumble: Duke also held opponents to 37 percent shooting, and the best three-point team in the country, Alabama, to 8 for 32.
That momentum ran across Houston’s famed ruggedness and its defense ranked No. 1 in the country in forcing others into misery when attempting to score (58.3 points per game allowed entering Saturday). Houston always carried the potential to gum up the game until it looked like it transpired in a vat of goo. Yet mingled with that old grit nowadays stands Houston’s national ranking in three-point shooting percentage: No. 4.
From the times in the first half when Duke looked on the verge of running away, including at 31-19, Cryer and company forged rescue. He lavished three-pointers around halftime: at 1:43, 0:33, 19:21 and 17:19. Milos Uzan smashed in another, at 1:12. All of that made it a game again, at 41-36, until it wasn’t anymore as, Sampson said, “We spent a lot of time matchup-hunting in the second half.” Duke’s defense clearly weakened some, but Flagg kept carrying things, even after the 59-45 lead had narrowed to 59-55. So when Duke whisked the ball around like a symphony toward Flagg’s three-point shot from the right baseline with 3:03 left, for that 64-55 lead, the game looked ready to fizzle from memories.
Then all hell came, and it jolted to life, and then it grew deathless.
