The No. 15 Florida Gators entered Duke’s territory knowing the margin for error was slim. After all, Duke led the series 14–4, had won two straight, and especially held a 4–0 edge at Cameron, where Jon Scheyer is 52–3 (.945). Still, even with Duke extending its best start since 2017–18 to 9-0 in front of almost nine thousand fans, Todd Golden felt his team had earned more than what the final score showed.

In a neck-and-neck game between these two giants in the league, the Blue Devils men emerged victorious by just one point, ending the game at 67-66. This prompted coach Golden to lay out the reality of playing inside one of college basketball’s toughest arenas in a post-game interview.

“I told our guys, to win in a place like Cameron, you’ve got to outplay Duke by 10 points because you’re not going to get any 50-50 calls,” Golden said after the game. “Things aren’t going to go your way, and we certainly had a little bit of that tonight. Again, overall, I thought we played a good game.”

In the first half of the game, the Gators looked like a team that didn’t know where they were. The Blue Devils’ relentless defense held them to just 29% shooting from the field and 19% from beyond the arc. On the other hand, the crowd in the stadium made Florida’s life even more difficult, as the Gators’ defense struggled to communicate between the roars of the “Cameron Crazies”.

The Cameron Crazies have been pulling off over-the-top stunts for years, starting with the classic “Air Ball” chant they made famous. When UNC’s Jeff Hale came to Cameron after previously dealing with a collapsed lung, fans spent the entire night chanting “In-Hale, Ex-Hale.”

And when Roy Williams showed up for his first Duke–UNC game as the Tar Heels’ coach in 2004, the Crazies greeted him dressed like characters from The Wizard of Oz, complete with a fake yellow brick road leading to the UNC locker room to tease him about “not being in Kansas anymore.”

ESPN’s Page 2 once put together a top-ten roundup of their wildest antics, and the Hale moment made the list. So did the time they chanted “Urkel” at a skinny Lehigh player wearing goggles and high socks. Even famous names weren’t off-limits. Shaq heard plenty from the crowd during his visit, and the Crazies once jokingly begged Grant Hill’s parents to “have one more kid.”

That should tell you how distracting and tough the crowd is. Still and all, in the second half, the Gators came out of the locker room as a team seeing all red. The team then held the men in blue to 38% shooting, while shooting 47% themselves to chip away at the deficit possession by possession.

Point guard Boogie Fland led his team by scoring 13 of his 16 points after halftime, followed by junior center Rueben Chinyelu, whose 14 rebounds and ferocious second-half rim protection gave fans the much-needed hope even after ESPN Analytics predicted this game to be 100% in favor of the Blue Devils.

And the Gators might have just won this game if it wasn’t for Isaiah Evans, who was sitting at 0-for-7 from the three-pointer line.

In the final moments of the game, the Gators were leading with 66-64, after Fland buried a massive go-ahead three with 35 seconds remaining. But Duke’s sophomore guard Evans responded with the dagger, a three (his first of the game) with 21 seconds left that ultimately delivered Duke their win.

Yet it’s impossible to overlook how effectively Florida disrupted Duke’s shooting, holding them to just 27% overall from three. Duke missed several clean looks, and Evans’ 12.5% night from deep was far below expectations given his 32.3% season average.

The Gators also finished with a 44–33 rebounding advantage, including 20–11 on the offensive glass, and scored 13 second-chance points after halftime. This display of potential was all the more essential, considering the online chatter around how the defending champs haven’t really been playing like one.

“Obviously, a disappointing result. We gave our best effort of the year tonight, on the road, here at Duke, incredibly difficult environment to play in,” Todd Golden further added. However, they will look to learn from this loss.

Florida needs to take care of two key aspects

The Gators have recorded five wins and three losses in the season so far. However, besides these losses, the one thing that haunts Florida is turnovers, which led them to lose the one-sided game against unranked TCU.

Even after Duke’s guard Evans dropped a three, the Gators had 21 seconds to answer back. But 2 of the 13 turnovers in this game came during this moment that officially sealed Florida’s third loss. After the game, Thomas Haugh took accountability for both late-game turnovers, saying the mistakes were on the players, not the system.

“Coach Golden gave us the opportunity to go out there and have a chance to win. I had a stupid turnover. Boogie turned it over, too. That’s on us,” he said.

Besides this, we aren’t seeing any improvements from senior guard Xaivian Lee, because of whom Golden has already faced the wrath of Florida fans. The starting player was on the court for 26 minutes, in which he dropped only 4 points, secured 4 rebounds, and made a single assist.

But as the season moves forward, fans will expect the team to learn from their mistakes and get better as they gear up to face the No. 5-ranked UConn Huskies, which, according to ESPN Analytics, is 52.6% in favor of the Huskies.