Can Duke win when Cam Boozer goes 3-for-17? Another ACC championship says yes
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Duke won ACC title over Virginia, 74-70, despite Cam Boozer shooting 3-of-17.
- Blue Devils should be NCAA Tournament’s No. 1 seed when bracket announced Sunday at 6 pm.
- Virginia’s Onyenso had 9 blocks, but Duke got big games from Evans and Cayden Boozer.
Cameron Boozer may well be the best college basketball player in America. But on Saturday night in the ACC Tournament final, he looked positively pedestrian.
Duke won anyway, 74-70, before a raucous crowd in Charlotte’s Spectrum Center. The Blue Devils edged a gritty Virginia team as Boozer’s teammates and his twin brother Cayden picked up the needed slack. One of the questions about this Duke team — could it win a big game when its best player can’t buy a bucket — turns out to be an emphatic “yes.”
Cam Boozer shot 3-for-17 from the field in what had to be one of the worst shooting nights of his 18-year-old life. He missed from long and short distance and got completely swallowed up by Virginia’s Ugonna Onyenso. The Cavalier big man had nine blocks in the game, and four of them came on Boozer. Frequently, the 7-foot Onyenso made the 6-9 Boozer look small, and no one has really been able to do that all year.
“He was blocking me all night,” Boozer said of Onyenso.
But a team that is going to be the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament when the bracket comes out Sunday night can win in all sorts of ways, and that Duke can do.
The Blue Devils (32-2) got 20 points from sharpshooter Isaiah Evans (the former North Mecklenburg High star), and 16 from Cayden Boozer while also grabbing 20 offensive rebounds and playing their usual stifling defense. That allowed Duke to survive a poor night shooting, when the Blue Devils made only 9 of 33 shots from the field in the second half and still were able to beat the No. 10 team in the country.
Cam Boozer still contributed, with 13 points, eight rebounds, eight assists and a very big play with 22 seconds remaining that began, fittingly, with him getting another shot blocked by Onyenso.
Duke led only 70-68 at the time. A rebound and Virginia basket on the other end could have tied or won the game.
“I think the thing that’s so special about that play,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said, “is it can be dejecting (when your shot is blocked). It can be really discouraging when that happens.”
Boozer had the presence of mind, though, to get his own rebound off the block and pass the ball back out to his brother rather than trying to throw up another shot in a hurry. Cayden Boozer then threw the ball to Evans, who got fouled.. He made two free throws with 12.3 seconds left, and Boozer made two more with 3.9 seconds left, and not long after that Boozer was accepting the Most Valuable Player trophy for the tournament (based on his two performances earlier in this tournament, not this one).
A note about that MVP award, which Boozer seemed somewhat surprised to receive: I had a vote and cast it for Cam Boozer. It had to go to a Duke player and all of the key ones in this tournament had one off game — Cayden Boozer in the quarterfinal, Evans in the semifinal and so on.
Said Boozer of his night: “Well, I definitely got frustrated. But first of all I’ve got to give props to him (Onyenso). He’s a great defender. Great shot blocker. I think there’s a lot I can learn from this game… , but I just want to keep attacking, figure it out and find other ways to win.”
It was the rare Duke game where Cayden outscored Cam. “In the beginning of the game, they just weren’t guarding me so I kept scoring,” Cayden said. “And then once I get confident, I feel like no one can really stop me, so I just kept attacking.”
“That was a great line,” cracked Cam, enjoying his brother’s bravado.
Cayden also played all 40 minutes. Scheyer, with the Boozer brothers and Evans all sitting with him at the postgame press conference, said: “Honestly, I thought Cayden completely put us on his back in that first half… To play 40 minutes against Virginia when they’re pressing you the whole game was just an incredible performance, man. Incredible.” Then a pause before Scheyer added: “Cam and Isaiah were just OK.”
Laughter ensued after that one. There’s been a lot of happiness around Duke of late. Duke has now become the first ACC school to win the conference’s football title and both the men’s and women’s basketball titles in the same academic year (oddly, it also defeated Virginia in the ACC football championship in the same city just three months before).
There will be another celebration Sunday night, as Duke gets its NCAA Tournament assignment and sees the path it must take to get to the Final Four in Indianapolis.
“We’re not done yet!” Scheyer told an exuberant crowd of Duke supporters on-court, right after the Blue Devils won the ACC Tournament for the third time in four years and the 24th time overall.
No, they’re not. And Saturday was more proof of that, as Duke — already down two starters — survived with its best player shooting 17.6%.
“He’s really spoiled us with his consistency,” said Scheyer of Cam Boozer, noting that for Boozer a 13-8-8 game was characterized as “an off night.”
But Duke can win all sorts of ways. This entire ACC Tournament was proof of that.
This story was originally published March 15, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
