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There had not yet been a night when Duke had to lean on Cameron Boozer, to ask him to be the star he is supposed to be. Most games, he’s played fewer than 30 minutes, still scoring more than 20 points in three of those, but generally idling as the Blue Devils cruise.
Then came Thursday against Arkansas, when no one else seemed to be able to do much on offense. Isaiah Evans and Dame Sarr had embarrassing airballs. Patrick Ngongba Jr. hit the side of the backboard, although he eventually tapped in his own miss. And if that was bad, Duke’s defense was somehow worse, letting the Razorbacks back into a game Duke should have put away early in the second half.
Boozer put down his shoulder, bullied his way toward the basket and dragged Duke to victory. The Razorbacks never had an answer for him. He was too big, too strong, too determined. It was just a question of Boozer taking control, which he did in the tensest moments of any second half the Blue Devils have yet played.
Without him, without a performance like this, Duke is no longer undefeated. Without all that, the Blue Devils don’t beat Arkansas 80-71 in this post-turkey tilt with the Hogs to move to 8-0 after their third true test of the season. They don’t pass this one without Boozer.
“We realized that they weren’t helping from the other big and they don’t really have an answer for me,” Boozer said. “So, I mean, coach is on me, ‘Get downhill, get to the rim. They can’t stop you.’ I did a lot of that second half for sure.”
At one point, he grabbed a defensive rebound and went the length of the court for a dunk, a one-man unstoppable offense the Blue Devils couldn’t do without. He hit two 3-pointers, but it wasn’t his outside game that got Duke through, it was what he did in the lane, backing down opponents, leaning into them, pushing and shoving his way into spots where he could get the ball into the basket. Once, even, by accident. In the first half, he accounted for a personal 10-0 run, scoring three baskets and setting up the fourth.
“As soon as he figured out, ‘I can put my shoulder in this guy’s chest and move him,’ that’s all he did,” Arkansas coach John Calipari said. “You can try 12 different things, or do what you do well and just do it over and over and over.”
On this night, the numbers truly reflected his impact on the game: 35 points, nine rebounds and three assists, while drawing seven fouls in 36 minutes — the most he’s played in a Duke uniform, because the Blue Devils hadn’t needed him like this before. And in this moment of need, he delivered.
“What he’s done, it’s been incredible,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said. “I think him and I both know there’s been more there, as crazy as that sounds, and I still think there’s a lot more there. For me, the biggest difference for a freshman is learning how to play through contact and the decision-making, the decisiveness. He can do so many different things.”
It was only the third time Boozer cracked the 30-minute mark this season, and the other two aren’t surprising: Duke’s other two neutral-site showcases against quality opposition, against Texas in Charlotte and against Kansas at Madison Square Garden.
Because of his father, and because of his decision to follow him to Duke along with twin brother Cayden, and because of his own reputation, Cameron Boozer arrived on campus as a new phenomenon, perhaps not as preternaturally marketable as Cooper Flagg, his immediate predecessor as Duke’s anointed freshman, but a sensation in his own right.
If he hadn’t had a game like this yet, it was perhaps only because Duke hadn’t needed it from him yet. But with the Blue Devils out of sorts, they leaned on Boozer and he leaned on the Razorbacks, over and over again. It wasn’t the 35 he scored against Indiana State, but that was a 38-point win. This was a one-possession game with as few as three minutes to go, and the Blue Devils trailed by as many as seven midway through the second half. And it wasn’t until the final minutes that Duke really seemed to dig in on defense.
Combine all of that from Boozer with a big late 3-pointer from Caleb Foster, with 15 points and a career-high eight assists in the same building where he set his career-high for scoring as a freshman — “good vibes,” Foster said — and it was enough to keep Duke undefeated at the beginning of the toughest stretch of the Blue Devils’ schedule.
From here, it’s back home to play Florida on Tuesday and then a trip to Michigan State — undefeated after a 16-point win over North Carolina earlier Thursday — before a return to the Garden to play Texas Tech. (There’s a home game against Lipscomb in there, too, which is threatening only as a potential trip game, no offense to the Bisons.)
Talented freshmen like Boozer don’t come along often, even if they come along more often at Duke than anywhere else. They don’t always take over games, or flash the true depth and dimension of their talent and ability. But there are nights like this, when the best player on the floor is truly the best player on the floor, when the opposing coach says “Cameron was a beast,” when one player can rise above and be the difference between winning and losing.
And was.
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This story was originally published November 27, 2025 at 10:48 PM.
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Luke DeCock
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