Boozer spearheads Duke's late surge against Wolverines

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - Tests are nothing new to Carlos Boozer.

A 6-foot-9 man-child from Juneau, Alaska, Boozer grew up being tested, proving that he could play with his opponents, always older than Boozer-now just one month past his 18th birthday-and always from an area with more basketball respect than Juneau.

When he began working his way back from a fractured bone in his foot which sidelined him for eight weeks, he learned about tests again-durability, flexibility, pushing himself every day to catch up with his teammates.

When the season started, he still had the world to prove to everyone. Out of shape and getting pushed around in the paint, Boozer finally failed a test.

He got parts of it right, but he was never the dominant force that Duke so desperately needed inside. Sixteen points against Columbia was nice, eight rebounds against Army was promising, but faster than you could say inside position Boozer was deemed not ready to perform.

But on a chilly afternoon in a cavernous Crisler Arena, that test became just another in a string of success stories longer than the Alaska Pipeline.

"That was by far Boozer's best game," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "He's starting to get the bounce back, tonight he had a lot of bounce."

His 25 points weren't just a highlight reel game, they were a statement.

It wasn't so much the points and the rebounds as much as it was Duke owning the paint. The Blue Devils simply dominated the Michigan post players, winning the rebounding battle 44-36 on paper and by an even larger margin on the floor.

"It just seemed like they were stepping up all the time," Michigan reserve center Peter Vignier said. "Their guys were just getting there, getting all the rebounds."

And where Boozer made his mark was where it most counted-as Duke's one-man answer to the Michigan run.

With Duke leading by just three points with 6:12 to go and with the "Maize Rage" student section in a fervor, Boozer blocked a Lavell Blanchard jumpshot into the air, then ran the length of the court, rebounded a Mike Dunleavy miss and immediately got fouled taking the ball back up.

Boozer then calmly sank both free throws, effectively ending the Michigan run.

But Duke's newest hoops hero wasn't done yet. After making another pair of free throws, Boozer barreled his way behind the Michigan defense, where he waited in the perfect spot to slam home a pass from Jason Williams, giving Duke a 10-point advantage.

And just in case the Crisler Arena fans didn't get a good look at the play the first time, the Williams-Boozer tag team became a human instant replay, running the play again and again and again.

Four successive times down the court, Williams fed an open Boozer beneath the basket, and outside of a Boozer fumble on the play's final run, every time it resulted in a Boozer jam.

"Every time, I saw [Vignier] running at me," Williams said. "Then I saw a nice big target behind him and Carlos made the play."

Defensively, Boozer forced the Wolverines to look outside for their shots. When the game was on the line, Michigan was as hesitant to take the ball inside as most people are to punch Mike Tyson in the back of the head.

As a result, the Wolverines rushed their shots and launched repeatedly from long range, ending runs with poor shot selection and shooting 25 three-pointers to Duke's 14.

"My shots were poor," freshman Jamal Crawford said. "We hurried a lot when we were behind and took some bad shots."

As a matter of fact, the only thing that might be scarier than Boozer's performance Saturday is what he said after it.

"I played well," he said smiling, "but there's still a lot more to see."