CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Duke will enter the NCAA tournament as the No. 1 overall seed and ACC champion, led by arguably the most impactful player in the country.
But the March microscope isn’t going to be on Cameron Boozer. In a sport of inconsistency and unpredictability, he’s too strong, too reliable — just too good — to be a question mark for Duke in any matchup.
Cameron Boozer is a sure thing. His twin brother, however?
That’s another conversation — and one that might determine whether Duke can win its first national championship since 2015.
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On his own, Cayden Boozer is a wonderful prospect. Though he didn’t hit the genetic lottery like his brother, who ended up a 6-foot-9, 250-pound colossus, every program would love the chance to build around a 6-foot-4 point guard with the character and high basketball IQ that you’d expect from the son of 13-year NBA veteran Carlos Boozer.
But Cayden Boozer is more of a long-term prospect, and there is no long-term at Duke.
Every year, a new crop of future NBA stars comes in to play for coach Jon Scheyer and leaves. For Cameron, a generational prospect who seems likely to go in the top three of the NBA Draft this summer, he will only get one shot to put his imprint on the NCAA tournament.
And his ability to do that may well come down to how his brother plays in a role he was never intended to have.
“I’m just trying to focus on what I can do each and every day,” Cayden Boozer said after Duke’s win over Florida State in the ACC quarterfinals.. “I try to block out the noise as much as I can. Obviously, it’s tough. You see it whenever you go on social media, but at the end of the day, I got to do whatever I can to help my team win. And if my role moves up because of [Caleb Foster’s] injury, I’ve got to do more. And I’m excited for the challenge.”
Foster, who has been Duke’s starting point guard all year, suffered a fracture in his right foot in the Blue Devils’ last regular season game against North Carolina. Though Scheyer has targeted the Final Four as a possible comeback point if Duke advances that far, the most realistic scenario is that he’s done for the season.
Foster is not a superstar player, averaging just 8.5 points and 2.8 assists this season, his third at Duke during an up-and-down career. But it’s hard to quantify what Duke loses without him because Foster, along with the rest of the Blue Devils’ roster, has been healthy all season.
Until now.
And in Duke’s 80-79 win over the Seminoles on Thursday night, you could envision how the loss of an experienced starting point guard could avalanche into an NCAA tournament disaster.
The half-court offense looked sticky. The ball security was shaky. And Cayden Boozer, a 28-percent 3-point shooter, couldn’t make the Seminoles pay for leaving him unguarded. After going 0-for-5 from the arc, he acknowledged he must be better as his role expands.
“That can mess with your mind a little bit,” he said. “I was trying to force the issue a little bit, trying to keep my confidence up when they’re not guarding me, trying to figure that out. But I understood what they were trying to do to me, trying to take me out of the game. It’s really weird. I’ve never been not guarded like that in my entire life. But I think it’s going to be good for me moving forward. I’ll be prepared for it now.”
Both Boozers are highly impressive 18-year olds. They carry themselves like professionals, not freshmen. Their father prepared them well for how to handle the spotlight.
You can tell not just by how accountable Cayden was in discussing his own struggles against Florida State, but also how the very next night, he bounced back with a season-high 16 points in the ACC semifinals against Clemson. And in the championship game Saturday, he took his aggressiveness to another level, breaking the paint regularly and finishing with 16 points on 6-for-12 shooting with 5 rebounds and 4 assists.
That Boozer could play with so much confidence after a really rough game in a role he hasn’t been in all season? That’s about as promising as it gets heading into the NCAA tournament.
“He’s been a big-time player his whole life,” Scheyer said. “I just want to tell him just how much I believe in him. And to handle different things that are thrown your way as a freshman, you haven’t seen everything. I just want to help prepare him for what other teams can do. But his toughness, his mental toughness is not something you can teach. He had that on his own.”
Still, Duke enters the NCAA tournament as neither a deep team nor an experienced one. Without Foster and sophomore big man Patrick Ngongba, who is also nursing an injury but might come back next weekend, the Blue Devils are essentially playing a seven-man rotation and asking some of their role players to contribute more than they have all season.
That was enough in the ACC. But can Duke survive in the NCAA tournament making such a big adjustment without a lot of time to settle into new roles?
“Obviously we’re in March, and every team is going to give us their best shot,” Cayden Boozer said. “It sucks losing Caleb like this. He’s been our leader the entire year. We all have to pick each other up and it’s really important to get these reps now so we’re prepared. We’re playing different lineups for the first time and it gets a little tricky, but it’s going to help us.”
Nobody’s going to shed tears over Duke’s sudden adversity. When you recruit the way Scheyer recruits, with all the advantages at Duke’s disposal, there are never any excuses. But no team in college basketball can just lose its starting point guard on the eve of the postseason and shrug it off like it’s no big deal.
This Duke team was largely built around Cameron Boozer, and for good reason. With his ability to dominate from the post or manipulate defenses when he has the ball at the top of the key, he’s arguably the best player in college basketball. But as the Blue Devils reach the most crucial part of their season, circumstances have lined up to make Cayden Boozer their most important player in the NCAA tournament.
Will he be up to the challenge?
We’re all about to find out.
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