Gators come up a point short despite a brilliant 2nd half
- Franz Beard
- Dec 3, 2025
- 6 min read
DURHAM, North Carolina – There were no moral victories to be had Tuesday night at Cameron Indoor Stadium, but Todd Golden saw something in his 15th-ranked Gators in the second half of a 67-66 loss to 4th-ranked Duke that bodes well for the future.
Down by as many as 15 in the first half and 36-24 at the intermission, the Gators put together their best half of the season and gave themselves a chance to win a game that looked hopeless after the first 20 minutes.
“That was our best 20 minutes overall period,” Golden said. “But, as I said, we were disappointed. There was a couple of things that happened in the first half that we have to live with. One of the things that we wanted to live with was their big guys taking threes and (Patrick) Ngbonga hit two threes in the first half. One bounced all the way to the ceiling and dropped in on us. (Cameron) Boozer made a couple of good threes. They make four threes in the first half from their front court. We can live with that.
“What we couldn’t live with was allowing Cam to get back to his right hand, left shoulder, sending him to the line, giving him those right lane drives.”
Boozer, who along with twin brother Cayden led Miami Columbus to four straight Florida State championships, scored 16 first half points as Duke shot 14-27 from the field overall and 5-13 from the 3-point line. Cameron Boozer was 6-9 overall from the field and 2-4 from the 3-point line.
I thought we played really well the first 10 minutes of the game,” Golden said. “I thought we were not nearly good enough the last 10 minutes of the first half, and that ended up costing us.”
Of Florida’s 24 first half points, Tommy Haugh was responsible for 13. He finished the game with 24 points, six rebounds, one assist, one steal and one blocked shot.
Florida adjusted its second half defense and while Boozer scored 13, he was only 4-12 from the field and made only one of five 3-pointers. Boozer found the going quite a bit tougher in the final 20 with Rueben Chinyelu putting the clamps on him.
“In the second half, I thought Rueben shut his water off and didn’t allow that to happen,” Golden said. “Kept beating him to the spot and made him counter. He made a couple of tough lefty hooks which we’ll live with but kept him off the foul line that way. And you know, I thought our zone bothered him a little bit. Mixing that in made them uncomfortable and you know, we held them to 31 points.”
Duke scored on a backdoor layup to open the second half, but the Gators scored the next nine points – a three by Xaivian Lee, a driving layup by Boogie Fland, consecutive inside moves for layups by Alex Condon – and Duke’s once formidable 14-point lead was cut to five.
With a little less than 16 minutes and the Gators trailing 40-33, Golden switched tactics that had an adverse affect on Duke the rest of the game. Full court pressure wasn’t so much about forcing turnovers as it was to force Duke out of its offensive rhythm. Once the Blue Devils broke the press and got into their offense, they were operating with 17 or fewer seconds on the shot clock.
Still, it was an uphill battle but Golden had a good thing going with Fland and Urban Klavzar doing most of the work on the perimeter with Condon, Chinyelu and Tommy Haugh doing the damage on the front line. Fland cut the Duke lead to a single point (44-43) with 12:32 remaining when he tipped in his own miss off a fast break, but Duke went on a 10-2 run to stretch things back to nine, 54-45.
Then came back-to-back threes by Haugh and Klavzar to bring the Gators back within three at 54-51 with 8:20 left. Duke responded with a 5-2 mini-run assisted by a bizarre dead ball flagrant foul call on Haugh with 5:51 left. Duke got two free throws to make it 58-53 and got the ball, too. On the ensuing possession, Ngbonga was fouled and hit one of two free throws.
Three points all from what can only be deemed one of several interesting calls from the zebra crew of Roger Ayers, Brian O’Connor and Tony Chiazza. The zebras didn’t lose the game for Florida – the Gators still had chances to win – but a game of this magnitude called for better officiating.
“I thought there were a lot of things that simply didn’t go our way tonight,” Golden said. “Maybe we caught another break when Tommy Haugh drives the rim and gets hammered (Haugh got two free throws that he canned), then they go review it and bang us on a flagrant. Things like that are really tough to swallow in a game like this and that was just one of two or three of them, probably, that we can get back on that, that were kind of very questionable situations.”
Florida did score six straight points after Duke led 59-53, a dunk by Condon and two straight jumpers by Fland, the second with 2:39 remaning that tied the game at 59-59. That was the first time the score was dead even since 19-19 with 8:02 left.
When Boozer knocked down his only three of the second half with 2:10 to go for a 62-59 Duke lead, the Duke crowd just about blew the roof off Cameron, but Florida had answers. Fland drove through heavy traffic for a layup with 1:49 left but Boozer muscled his way for a tough two and a 64-61 Duke lead.
Florida took the lead on a pair of Condon free throws with 1:11 left and a three from the left wing by Fland with 35 seconds to make it 66-64, silencing the Duke crowd.
The final 30 seconds proved a nightmare finish for the Gators, who had fought back so valiantly. Isaiah Evans, who had an oh-for-7 night going from the 3-point line, shook free when Florida over-rotated on the left wing. He drilled the shot with 21 seconds to go.
The Gators were holding the ball for a last shot at winning the game, but when double-teamed Fland dribbled the ball off his foot with four seconds left. On the inbounds play, Condon fouled immediately, sending Caleb Foster to the line for a one-and-one with 1.9 seconds remaining. When Foster missed, Chinyelu rebounded and Florida called its last time out with one second remaining.
Florida tried a length of the court pass on the final play of the game, but Duke’s Maliq Brown got a piece of the ball, ending the Gators’ chances of pulling this one out.
To contrast the two halves, Florida was 10-35 overall and 3-16 from the 3-point line in the first 20 minutes. The Gators made only 9-25 on layups and scored only two second chance points.
Then came the second half in which the Gators hit 15-32 overall and 4-12 on threes. Fland, who was 1-5 from the field with only three first half points, scored 13 in the second when he hit 6-11 shots. Condon scored 10 of his 12 points in the second half, finishing the game with 10 rebounds. Chinyelu only scored four points, but he had another beastly game on the boards, finishing with 14.
“We played an elite second half,” Golden said. “Came in here and outscored them by 11. We just dominated the second half. We beat them by 11 on the boards. Turned the ball over probably a few too many times, but I thought we played a good game. I told our guys, to win in a place like Cameron, you’ve got to outplay Duke by 10 points because you’re not going to get any 50-50 calls. Things aren’t going to go your way, and we certainly had a little bit of that tonight.”
SEC BASKETBALL
Syracuse (5-3) 62, No. 13 Tennessee (7-2) 60: Syracuse hit critical free throws in the final minute to upset 13th-ranked Tennessee. Jaylen Carey led the Vols with 22 points and nine rebounds.
No. 16 North Carolina (6-1) 67, No. 18 Kentucky (5-3) 64: Derek Dixon scored five of North Carolina’s final six points including the go-ahead layup with 16 seconds to go to lead the Tar Heels past Kentucky. Otega Oweh led Kentucky with 16 points.
Oklahoma (6-2) 86, Wake Forest (6-3) 68:
Virginia Tech (7-2) 86, South Carolina (5-3) 83: Virginia Tech outscored South Carolina 16-13 in overtime. Meechie Johnson and Elijah Strong each scored 18 to lead South Carolina.
Texas A&M (7-2) 81, Pittsburgh (5-4) 73: Rashaun Agee scored 21 and grabbed 13 rebounds to lead the Aggies to a road win over Pitt.
Georgia (8-1) 107, Florida State (5-3) 73: Jeremiah Wilkinson scored 22 points as Georgia hit 56 percent from the field and outrebounded FSU 48-27 for a win in Tallahassee.
Miami (7-2) 75, Ole Miss (5-3) 66: Miami sprinted out to a 42-26 lead at the half and then cruised to a win over Ole Miss in Oxford. Miami outrebounded the Rebels 45-29.
Notre Dame (6-3) 76, Missouri (8-1) 71: Notre Dame outscored Missouri 43-31 in the second half to knock off the Tigers, who were led by Mark Mitchell with 26 points.
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I've never heard Cameron Indoor THAT loud and they get painfully loud when UNC goes up for their anual game on the Duke campus. Dookies really turned out for this game. The Gators will be unbeatable if they can stop beating themselves. Still, I was proud to see how well they stood up to the home crowd and a Duke team that is in mid-season form.
The dead-ball technical on Haugh was critical in salvaging Duke’s small advantage and the two free throws - - Scheyer got to pick his FT shooter. But in the first half when we desperately needed points, Tommy’s drive from the right to the board resulted in a blatant goaltending that the three referees ignored. There were other odd calls and no calls that fell the home team’s way. But those four points proved to be the difference in a game the Gators would have won at home or on a neutral court. Florida is starting to put it all together. Lee needs to get going or Klavzar will take his job.
Looks like the same problems are still haunting the Gators: too many turnovers and poor shooting from the starting guards. Lee went right back to being "Clang" Lee, and when he drives the lane he thinks he can shoot over the bigs. He can't. Fland, at least, knows to pull up and shoot those short shots that he's really good at. And for God's sake, would Coach Golden tell Alex Condon to quit shooting threes? He needs to be under the basket. Klavzar should be starting.