NCAA Tournament: Houston’s epic comeback beats Duke to set up Florida final | College basketball

Houston’s suffocating defense wiped away a 14-point deficit over the final eight minutes and erased Cooper Flagg and Duke’s title hopes on Saturday in a 70-67 stunner over the Blue Devils at the Final Four.

Duke made a grand total of one field goal over the last 10 minutes of this game. The second-to-last attempt was a step-back jumper in the lane by Flagg that J’Wan Roberts disrupted. The last was a desperation heave by Tyrese Proctor that caught nothing at the buzzer.

It was Roberts’ two free throws with 19.6 seconds left that gave the Cougars their first lead since the score was 6-5 early in the first half. LJ Cryer, who led Houston with 26 points, made two more to push the lead to three. It was Houston’s biggest lead of the night.

“No one ever loses at anything as long as you don’t quit,” coach Kelvin Sampson said. “If you quit, you’ve lost.”

The Cougars, who have never won a national title, not even in the days of Phi Slama Jamma, will play Florida on Monday night for the championship.

Houston closed the game on an 11-1 run, and though Flagg finished with 27 points, he did sp on 8-for-19 shooting and never got a good look after his three at the 3:02 mark put the Blue Devils up by nine. The looked over at that point – ESPN’s Gamecast gave Duke a 92.3% chance of winning with 42 seconds left – but Houston were just getting started.

A team that prides itself on getting three stops in a row – calling the third one the “kill stop” – allowed a measly three free throws down the stretch.

“It’s hard to process … I thought we had good looks but didn’t finish,” said Duke coach Jon Scheyer. “You gotta handle the wins and you gotta handle the losses. The best team tonight was Houston.”

In Saturday’s other semi-final, Walter Clayton Jr scored 34 points and Florida beat Southeastern Conference rival Auburn 79-73, sending the Gators to the national championship game for the first time since their titles in 2006 and 2007.

“Clayton was the difference. He was just flat out the difference,” Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said. “We couldn’t contain him down that end.”

The All-America guard for the Gators (35-4) had a driving layup with 2:24 left, on the possession right after Australian big man Alex Condon drew a charge against Johni Broome The Gators will have the chance Monday night to win the SEC’s first title since Kentucky in 2012, the only one since they won in back-to-back seasons. Florida take an 11-game winning streak into the title championship game in the Alamodome.