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A tale of two halves
Duke started slow, but pulled away from Texas. It wasn't a coincidence that Cam Boozer did the same thing. Plus: Three teams cruised without starters, Oregon won a thriller, TCU loses a starter for the season, mid-major players who stood out on Monday, and much more.
Sean Paul
November 05, 2025
In partnership with
Good morning! Tuesday wasn’t loaded with as many games as Monday, but there’s still quite a bit of hoops news to cover. I love that the season’s finally here.
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1. Duke overcomes Texas despite Boozer’s slow start
Koa Peat, Darryn Peterson, and AJ Dybantsa were awesome on opening night. Tuesday was was Cam Boozer's turn to dominate.
Except that only happened for about 20 minutes.
No. 6 Duke pulled away from Texas, 75-60, on a night when their newest star freshman seemed mortal for the first half — 0-for-7 from the field — and the Devils were down one at the break. Coach Jon Scheyer had some simple motivating words at halftime.
"He said I played soft. Which was true,” Boozer said afterward. “I just tried to wash it off.”
So he responded with a second half of 15 points, and finished with 13 rebounds.
Sean Miller on Cam Boozer: "He's a one-man wrecking crew ... He might've had a subpar game. We held him to 15 and 13."
— Brendan Marks (@BrendanRMarks)
4:49 AM • Nov 5, 2025
Most of Boozer’s production came at the foul line, scoring nine of his 15 points from the stripe. And this isn’t to cause any concern. Boozer should be fine going forward.
"He's just a competitor and he's a winner, and the ability to flip that switch in game, I think that's what a lot of guys struggle with," Scheyer said. "That's, that's not an easy thing."
The biggest star of the evening? Sophomore guard Isaiah Evans led the Blue Devils with a career-high 23 points on 7-of-13 shooting. In a more defined role, Evans could be a budding star in Durham.
Duke had the positional size to take Texas out of everything it wanted offensively. Nothing came easy for the Longhorns, who scored .90 ppp and turned the ball over 16 times.
Texas couldn't do anything at the rim, shooting 14-for-42 (33%) from two-point range. Last season, Duke overwhelmed teams with defense. It might be the same story this season.
2. Injuries? No problems for these ranked teams
There’s never a good time to have a key player out with an injury. But when you play a sub-200 KenPom team, sometimes it works out.
