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00:00Duke is going to look back on this thing and say, we had it several times, I mean, especially with eight minutes to go being up 14. How is it possible that that kind of lead could be gone? And then you look at it down nine with two minutes to go. Duke led, Houston was down, then things of course got dicey. And look, anything goes being down two buckets with under a minute to go. And that started happening with the fouls. LJ Cryer also had a huge game. He had 28 points, eight for 14 from the field, six of nine from three point range.
00:30And five rebounds in this game. So now we get to the main course, so to speak. And tonight, the Florida Gators will be taking on the Houston Cougars. And of course, Florida had their way with Auburn late in this game, very similar. You didn't really know which way it was going to go.
00:48And they end up getting it done with Walter Clayton Jr., Mike, having another monster performance, 34 points, five of eight from three point range, 11 of eight field goals, seven of seven free throws. And Mike, when we were on last week, we talked about this. He can have a quiet first half. He seems to have these quiet first halves, but he is the best closer going in college basketball right now. And I guess I wonder, will he be able to close out another game tonight for the Gators?
01:16Well, one of the keys to Saturday was he wasn't as quiet in the first half. He was much more emphatic in his play than he had been against UConn down in Raleigh or in the San Francisco game against Texas Tech. Against UConn, he was poor for 32 minutes, then played great down the stretch. Against Texas Tech, he just wasn't aggressive enough against the double teams that the Red Raiders applied. In this game against Auburn, he was better.
01:42He wasn't great until the final 10 or so, but he was better. And that gave them a chance. If he had been as poor in the first 30 minutes of the Auburn game as he had been against UConn or Texas Tech, there would have been no comeback.
01:55So, again, it has to continue that he has to be out there to punish any extra defensive attention that he gets. And if he doesn't get extra, he has to find a way to deal with if he gets past his initial defender. Most often, it'll be Miloš Užan. If it's not him, it'll be L.J. Cryer.
02:17Once he gets past that initial defender, he has to find a way to create a play against maybe the best set defense that I can remember seeing. Because I go back to the early 2000s when I was covering Bob Huggins' Cincinnati teams with Kenyon Martin, and they were phenomenal defensively, especially at the rim. But they were allowed to do things that you can't do now.
02:39Drawing charges was as easy as blowing your nose. You could bump cutters. You can't do those things now or you get called for fouls. And yet this Houston team makes it possible to get the same kind of defensive results that those teams did.