For Duke, stunned silence after epic collapse in Final Four - ESPN

SAN ANTONIO — Inside the searing silence of the Duke locker room, the echo of a door slamming shut intermittently rippled through. Every time a player or staff member ducked into the adjacent coaches locker room, the bang of the door reverberated like a siren in a still night.

There's nothing to prepare a team for the emotional spiral that comes with squandering a six-point lead in the final 35 seconds. After Houston scored the game's final nine points in 33 seconds to stun Duke 70-67 on Saturday night in the Final Four, a hush accompanied the Blue Devils' attempts to process it.

Players wandered quietly to grab a slice of pizza from one of the 10 boxes stacked high across a Powerade cooler. They stared down at their phones to avoid eye contact with the lingering media. One walk-on returned from the shower with tears in his eyes. Another wrote in a journal with a pencil.

They replayed how somehow a six-point lead could disappear in less than 20 seconds. But even after a spree of inbounds failures, misses and mental gaffes, two key moments in the final 20 seconds from star freshman Cooper Flagg — a foul and a miss — capped the stunning meltdown.

Flagg's missed 12-foot jumper, with Duke trailing by one point, will be the play that will live forever in replays. Duke had a chance to take control of the game and stop the hemorrhaging; a timeout was called with 17 seconds left. The Blue Devils cleared out for Flagg, who got an isolation matchup with Houston sixth-year senior J'Wan Roberts. Flagg pulled up from inside the lane and faded away from the outstretched arms of the 6-foot-8 Roberts. The shot caromed off the front rim.

«It's the play Coach drew up,» Flagg said. «Took it into the paint. Thought I got my feet set, rose