Duke is seeking a national title. Top recruits Cameron and Cayden Boozer want a prep crown as well
Associated Press
MIAMI (AP) — Cameron and Cayden Boozer have one goal this week. They want to win the biggest trophy that has eluded them throughout their careers at Miami powerhouse Christopher Columbus High.
'Got to win nationals,' Cameron said.
This time next year, one might think he'll be saying exactly the same thing at the college level.
The Duke-bound twin sons of longtime NBA forward Carlos Boozer have a national championship in mind this week — the high school version — while the school at which they'll be enrolling in a couple months is favored to win the NCAA title at the Final Four that starts Saturday.
The Boozer twins are essentially a reminder that whether presumed No. 1 draft pick Cooper Flagg leaves Duke for the NBA as many expect or not, the Blue Devils will be loaded again next season with the consensus top high school recruiting class in the country and likely right back in the national-title picture.
Duke is winning this year while playing a ton of freshmen. It'll likely have to follow the same formula next year.
'Age is just a number,' Duke coach Jon Scheyer said. 'And obviously it's different to have three freshmen starting. (In the regional final) we played five freshmen on a team that's going to a Final Four. I think for our program, we've always thought about doing things differently.'
That recruiting class is led by Cameron Boozer, the now two-time Gatorade national player of the year. He won it two years ago as a sophomore. The winner last year — that would be Flagg, a top contender for college player of the year this year. And now that Flagg is in college, the best-high-school-player trophy is Boozer's once again.
'His game is already elite,' said Miami Heat forward Kevin Love, himself a former Gatorade player of the year who surprised Cameron Boozer with the trophy in a ceremony at Columbus High last week.
Cameron Boozer, a 6-foot-10 power forward, is averaging 22.6 points, 12 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 1.9 steals and 1.4 blocks through 30 games this season — during which he and his brother, a 6-foot-4 point guard, led Columbus to a 27-3 record and fourth consecutive Florida state title.
'He's one of the best leaders I've ever met," Cayden Boozer said of his twin brother. "I'm a little bit more shy when you when you first meet me, but I open my shell once I get to know people. And he's one of the funniest guys I know. Very goofy.'
The Boozer twins were recruited by basically everybody at the Division I level, but Duke — where Carlos Boozer played for three seasons under coach Mike Krzyzewski — wasn't a lock to get them. Miami pushed hard for the twins, and some experts actually expected them to sign with the Hurricanes before the Blue Devils wound up winning the commitment in October.
It should be noted that the twins weren't a recruiting package deal. Things just worked out that way.
'We never really discussed even if we wanted to (go to school together) until basically the end," Cayden Boozer said. "We were just going through it by ourselves, seeing what school was the best fit for both of us as individuals. Then when it came down to the wire, we were like, 'Do we want to do this together? Yeah, I think we should.' So, obviously, we're able to go to the same school together, which is an amazing feeling.'
The national high school tournament, now called the Chipotle Nationals, brings together 10 boys teams and four girls teams. It starts Wednesday and runs through the two championship games on Saturday in Fishers, Indiana, near Indianapolis.
There's no shortage of well-known programs in the tournament. Montverde Academy and IMG Academy from Florida have both their boys and girls teams in the fields. The boys field also includes Link Academy of Missouri, Long Island Lutheran of New York, Brewster Academy of New Hampshire, CIA Bella Vista of Arizona, Prolific Prep of California, Wasatch Academy of Utah and Dynamic Prep of Texas. The girls field, along with the two Florida schools, includes Westtown School of Pennsylvania and Faith Family Academy of Texas.
Some of the names are instantly recognizable: Carmelo Anthony's Syracuse-bound son Kiyan Anthony plays for Long Island Lutheran, Dynamic Prep is coached (and the school was founded) by former NBA All-Star Jermaine O'Neal, and Heat assistant coach Malik Allen has his sons Dante and Kayden at Montverde.
But plenty of eyeballs will be on the Boozer twins, and rightly so. That's been the case for years and they handle it with ease.
'I still haven't reached any of my dreams," Cayden Boozer said. "We've been able to win at the high school level, but I still haven't gone to college. And only the 1% are able to make it to the NBA. So, I'm just pushing myself to chase my dreams because this is just the beginning of what I really want to do. Having that in mind allows me to be able to push myself.'
They both have pushed plenty. They didn't become blue-chip recruits because of the family name. They earned the trip to where they're at.
'The thing about expectation is other people's expectations don't really matter," Cameron Boozer said. 'You kind of have to focus on the game and be present in every game. If you always are focusing on the outside noise and who's saying this, who's saying that and who expects this and that, you're never going to have good games. Just go out there and think about basketball.'
___
AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness. Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here.
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San Francisco Chronicle
41 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
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Forbes
an hour ago
- Forbes
NBA Finals 2025: The Indiana Pacers Are Comfortable In Chaos
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At least once in every playoff series, they've had a 5% win probability or lower in the final three minutes. Yet, it's the opposing team sulking and fuming in the locker room: All of those ended in Pacer wins. Three of them resulted in silent road crowds, walking to the exits questioning the meaning of life. At this point, you're more surprised when the Pacers don't pull off a miracle. They have made the extraordinary feel expected. And it appears this should no longer be considered luck. It's simply their identity – and they love it. Thursday was the fifth time Indiana has overcome a 15+ point deficit in this postseason, which is the most since 1997 when the play-by-play era began. Additionally, Indiana is now the fourth team in the play-by-play era to win a postseason game despite leading for 30 or fewer seconds. They joined the 1999 Spurs, 2001 Mavericks, and 2002 Lakers. Two of those three teams won the championship. Before last night, the record was 13 seconds. 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Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Yes 'Cers! The 10 most mind-blowing stats on how absurd Tyrese Haliburton and the Pacers have been in the clutch
The Indiana Pacers are three wins away from being crowned the 2025 NBA champion. For head coach Rick Carlisle, star guard Tyrese Haliburton and the Pacers, three is the only number that matters. But for us, the audience, we need to look at some more numbers to make sense of what we're watching. Because words can sometimes fail. Especially after the Pacers mounted yet another last-second miracle in Thursday's win over the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 1 of the NBA Finals. Advertisement Here are the 10 most mind-boggling facts about the Pacers' heroics in clutch moments this postseason: 1. Tyrese Haliburton is shooting 13 of 15 (86.7 percent) this season on shots to tie or go-ahead in the final two minutes of games. That's right, in the final 120 seconds of games this regular season and postseason combined, with an opportunity to tie or take the lead, Haliburton has missed only two of his 15 attempts from the floor, according to shot tracking. Six of those makes were 3-pointers. Actually, one of those was a 4-pointer at the buzzer against Milwaukee back in March. It was an impossible shot, soaring above Giannis Antetokounmpo's outstretched arms. When we account for the added value of the 3-point shot, Haliburton is effectively shooting 106.7% from the floor on these shots, which is also what we call 'effective field goal percentage.' He's shooting so efficiently on these close-and-late shots that making 15 straight layups would be less effective. Advertisement Let's frame this another way: against his peers. To better understand how remarkable it is that Haliburton has shot 13 of 15 on these super clutch shots, consider that all players total are shooting 38% on these shots. Which makes sense because defenses are locked in on trying to make it extra difficult for shooters in these big moments. Some really good players have had little success in these moments. Really good players like … 2. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is 0 for 7 on such shots this season. Granted, the MVP hasn't been trailing or tied in late-game situations much this season because the Thunder have often been too busy blowing their opponents out. But I can't help but point out that, in a showdown of these two All-Star point guards, one player is 13 of 15 and the other hasn't made a single shot in this scenario. Advertisement The most recent example was SGA's missed midrange jumper at the end of Game 3 against Denver. He tried to take Christian Braun one-on-one and flung an off-balance 12-footer off the back iron. The game went into overtime. He missed six other opportunities this season, all coming in the regular season. Most players, even All-Stars, miss these shots more often than not. In fact … 3. The following group of current or former All-Stars has collectively missed all 25 such shots this season: Gilgeous-Alexander, Paul George, Zion Williamson, Bradley Beal, Andrew Wiggins and Zach LaVine. Stack them all together and they've collectively gone 0-for-TWENTY-FIVE. Advertisement The aforementioned Gilgeous-Alexander is still searching for his first made bucket of the season in this scenario, after seven tries. That's a little better than 2021-22 All-Star forward Andrew Wiggins, who fired up eight errant shots without a make in Golden State and Miami this season. That's the most for any player without a made field goal in this situation this season. Again, Haliburton has made – count 'em – 13 of these clutch shots. Zach LaVine has also missed all four of his offerings. Paul George is 0 for 3. Zion Williamson has missed both of his shots and Beal misfired on his only opportunity — a layup against Dallas back in November. Six All-Stars, zero makes, 25 tries. That's how good Haliburton has been. What about just this postseason? Well … 4. Haliburton is shooting 6 of 7 on shots to tie or take the lead in the final 90 seconds this postseason. This one is courtesy of the great Keerthika Uthayakumar who has been churning out bangers all season long. Advertisement She tells us that Hali's six made buckets in these situations is the most such shots we've seen in any one postseason since 1997. To drill this down even further, Haliburton has made more of these shots (six) than the Thunder, Timberwolves, Warriors, Cavs, Lakers, Clippers, Rockets, Pistons, Magic, Heat and Bucks combined this postseason (five). That's 11 entire teams compared to one man. But those are just seven shot attempts. Let's expand the criteria. 5. Haliburton's 'playoff shooting clutch win probability added' is so far beyond anything we've seen on record Some might say that the above four stats are too narrow in scope. What about the daggers? The ones where you stretch a tiny lead late in the game into an insurmountable one? Shouldn't those count, too? Advertisement Let's take a more comprehensive look that will also look at shots that ice a game for a team. Over at , the great Mike Beuoy has built a metric that aggregates how much a player adds or subtracts to his team's win probability with his shot-making (or oftentimes, shot-missing). The concept is simple. It takes a reading of a team's chances of winning before a player takes a shot (say, 60%) and after a player takes a shot (say, 90%). It calculates the difference in those two figures (90%-60% = +30%) and then credits or debits the net figure to the shooting player (+30%). Add it all up for a player's shots across a postseason and you can see how a player's makes and misses shake out in the end. According to Inpredictable data, Haliburton's 'shooting clutch win probability added' this postseason is the highest in the NBA's play-by-play era, which began in 1997. No player had added more than two 'wins' purely by his aggregated shotmaking (+20% here, -2 percent there, +5 percent here, etc). Until Haliburton. LeBron James in 2013 and 2018 had held the record in clutch shotmaking since 1997 with 1.86 wins and 1.82 wins, respectively. With Thursday's shot, Haliburton has now surged all the way to 2.48 wins this postseason alone. He's 33 percent higher than the previous record. Advertisement Remember, this metric also incorporates your misses. So a player that has just a smattering of clutch makes amid a sea of misses will get docked for the failures, too. That's why, even though Haliburton has hit several game-winners this postseason, he's 'only' at 2.48 wins added. Misses will drag down a players' overall score. Anyway, check out this chart that Beuoy shared on Thursday night: Kobe Bryant's best? Hali's been better. Damian Lillard? Steph Curry? Hali's shotmaking takes the cake. Maybe Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Larry Bird were more clutch in their shot-making back in their day. Unfortunately, we don't have complete play-by-play data before 1997 to grade them on the same scale. But we can say with reasonable certainty that Haliburton has been the best in this regard in the last 29 seasons of data. Advertisement Now, if you want a bespoke version of this win probability added metric, Beouy has you covered . And guess what, when you incorporate assists, rebounds and other box score stats … 6. Haliburton is also No. 1 in clutch win probability added for any postseason since 1997 — not just shot-making There are other ways to be clutch that aren't covered in the previous metric. A player could get a critical rebound, dish out a clutch assist, rise up for a big-time block. Or on the other side of the ledger, cough up the ball in a big moment. It's important to note that the above metric only examines shot-making — like the jumper Haliburton drilled in OKC with 0.3 seconds left. He has loads of those that have gone his way, and almost none that haven't. That's why he's lapping the field. But Haliburton also almost never turns the ball over. So if he doesn't miss a ton and he takes good care of the ball, he's going to be an elite clutch player. But how elite? Advertisement Turns out, Haliburton's total Clutch WPA stands at 2.54 wins this postseason, slightly higher than his shots-only total, which tells us that his secondary play has only improved his clutch standing. The only player whose postseason ledger comes close to Haliburton's figure is Dirk Nowitzki's 2.15 Clutch WPA mark during his epic run to the 2011 championship. Again, Haliburton stands above the rest. Here is a list of Haliburton's clutch plays/misplays and the corresponding WPA . LOOK AT ALL THAT GREEN. Compare that forest of green to All-Star point guard Cade Cunningham, who has the lowest Clutch WPA. And Haliburton got named by the players as the most overrated player in the game. In terms of clutch play, it's him and Nowitzki's 2011 title run and then the rest. There's a statue outside the Mavericks' arena commemorating Nowitzki. At this point, we might need to fasttrack a Haliburton statue outside Gainbridge Fieldhouse. 7. Tyrese Haliburton and the Pacers players have just two turnovers in 33 minutes of clutch time. On Thursday night after the shocker, Kevin O'Connor made the astute point that Indiana goes against the grain by running their stuff in critical moments without getting bogged down in iso-ball. Teams usually try to slow things down and go one-on-one to avoid turnovers that can happen as a result of passes getting intercepted. Advertisement But the Pacers are indeed unique in this way. Haliburton has just one clutch turnover this postseason in 33 minutes of action and a whopping eight assists. Andrew Nembhard has three assists and one turnover. Pascal Siakam also has an assist, with no turnovers. Individually, that's 12 turnovers to just two assists (they also had one team turnover). Contrast that assist-to-turnover ratio in the clutch with the New York Knicks, who logged 13 assists to 14 turnovers in their 49 minutes of clutch action. The exquisite ball-handling for the Pacers has kept teams like the Knicks and Thunder at bay in crunchtime. How good are they as a team in these clutch situations? Glad you asked … 8. The Pacers are 8-1 in clutch games this postseason The only loss came against the Knicks in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals after KAT rattled off 20 points in the fourth quarter. Advertisement Other than that? The Pacers haven't been beaten in eight games that entered the league's official clutch zone (game within five points in the final five minutes). They stole two from Milwaukee, three from Cleveland and one each in the last two rounds. Eight wins and just one loss in these nerve-wrecking games. How good is that record? There have been 73 teams since the 1998 playoffs that have played in at least nine 'clutch' games. The Pacers' .889 win percentage in those close games is the best record for any of them. It tops the 1998 Bulls and the 2007 Spurs, who went 9-2 (.818) in their respective title runs. The Pacers have been more victorious in these tight games than the Hall of Fame rosters of the Warriors, the Kobe-Shaq Lakers and the LeBron squads that went to eight straight Finals. Advertisement Before this run, could you say there were any surefire Hall of Famers on this Pacers roster? That might change if they win this whole thing … Is Indiana the most clutch team we've ever seen? The data points to one answer: Yes 'Cers. 9. Three of the seven biggest playoff comebacks since 1996 belong to the Pacers. All in this postseason. Per 's win probability charts, the Pacers have won three games this postseason when they had, at one point or another, 1-in-434 or longer odds to win based on clock, score and possession. In the Eastern Conference finals Game 1, the Pacers had just a 0.05 percent chance of winning (1-in-1999 to be precise) in the fourth quarter when they were down 14 with 3:44 left. They won 138-135. In Game 2 against the Cavs, Cleveland enjoyed a seven-point lead with 48 seconds left, leaving the Pacers with a measly 0.21 percent chance of winning. The Pacers won 120-119. In the closeout game against Milwaukee in the first round, they pulled off a similar miracle, turning around a seven-point deficit with 43 seconds left, bottoming out at 0.23 percent odds to win. The Pacers won 119-118. Advertisement The craziest part? The OKC reversal on Thursday night doesn't even make the cut. In Game 1 of the Finals, the Pacers faced just a 2.3 percent chance of pulling off the upset, down nine with 2:52 remaining in the game. Of course, they won 111-110 after Haliburton's clutch jumper. That's the sixth-largest comeback of this postseason. The top three, you guessed it, belong to the Pacers. So, to recap, the Pacers won games in which they had just a 0.05 percent chance, 0.21 percent chance, a 0.23 percent chance and a 2.3 percent chance. To pull off one of those wins is a miracle. But to do all four? If you do the math … 10. At their lowest points, the Pacers had 1-in-17 billion odds to win all four games of Game 5 vs. Bucks, Game 2 vs. Cavs, Game 1 vs. Knicks and Game 1 vs. OKC. That means if we ran those four games again, at their lowest points, 17 billion times, we'd only see it happen once. Advertisement And we were alive to see it. How's that for clutch?
