Duke’s Cayden Boozer has 2 college basketball legends to follow for redemption arc

It’s not the ending to the first chapter that Cayden Boozer would’ve ever written.

But most likely, his story with the Duke Blue Devils still has more to go. He’s not expected to leave for the NBA like his brother, and so his college basketball journey has a chance at redemption.

And for inspiration, he need not look too far into the past. Two of the best collegiate point guards in recent memory both rebounded from shocking endings to find their own versions of triumph.

At Virginia, there was Ty Jerome, an incredible point guard for Tony Bennett. He was also a key cog in the 1-seed Cavaliers that were stunned by 16-seed UMBC.

The next year, Virginia and Jerome won the national title.

And at Purdue, Braden Smith. As a freshman, he and the Boilermakers lost to 16-seed Fairleigh Dickinson.

Since then, they’ve played in a national final and Smith became college basketball’s all-time leader in assists.

Boozer’s mistake wasn’t the same, of course. It was really one moment that will be replayed over and over, the inability to keep possession of the basketball and instead risking a pass that led to UConn’s heroic game-winning 3-pointer just before the buzzer in the Elite Eight.

But in some ways, it’s the same challenge — Cayden Boozer, like Jerome and Smith before him, has to get up off the mat.

For Cayden, he’s often been the guy just a notch below his taller, more-heralded brother Cameron. Cayden is a great player in his own right, but not the kind of phenom that NBA scouts immediately salivate over.

Now, his story isn’t just that of playing second fiddle to his brother. It’s a story with on-court devastation.

Some of college basketball’s great point guards have felt emotions similar to that before using it as fuel, as a way to blossom into something better.

That will be Cayden Boozer’s challenge. And if he does it, he’ll have created quite the redemption story arc.