Cooper Flagg, the great candidate to be the number 1 pick in the 2025 Draft who is generating as much expectation before his jump to the NBA as LeBron James, Kevin Durant or Victor Wembanyama, starred in a game for the ages in Duke’s86-78 win over Notre Dame.
The magic of Cooper Flagg is being himself
Sion James
The Blue Devils rookie scored 42 points (the first to do so at Duke since JJ Redick in 2006), six rebounds and seven assists in the highest scoring performance by a freshman in ACC history, breaking a 12-year-old record held by Olivier Hanlan (Boston College).
“He’s just being himself. And that’s the magic of Cooper Flagg, being himself. He’s not forcing anything. He’s just being a player, taking the looks as they come. He saw something he liked and 42 points later, here we are,” said his teammate Sion James after the game.
Cooper Flagg, a powerful 6-foot-9 forward who just turned 18, is one of the best defenders in the NCAA and has become Duke’s leader in points, rebounds, blocks, assists and steals.
Cooper Flagg’s statistics in his first season in the NCAA, in which he already has six double-doubles, are 19.1 points, 9.3 rebounds, 3.9 assists, 1.3 blocks and 1.6 steals in 31.3 minutes.
“Cooper Flagg is one of the best basketball players we’ve seen in a long time.”
Carlos Boozer, a former Duke player with a long NBA career, acknowledged that “Cooper Flagg has exceeded some of the expectations we had. I thought he was going to be the best freshman in the ACC, but now he has a real chance to be the national player of the year.”
Joel Berry II, a former North Carolina player, also highlights the impact of Cooper Flagg in the NCAA: “You knew he was going to have a big impact on the game… But I never saw this.”
Cooper Flagg is Maine’s most impactful export since lobster
Jay Bilas
Analyst Clay Travis defines Cooper Flagg as “one of the best American-born basketball players we’ve seen in a long, long time. He has no ceiling.”
Jay Bilas, an analyst for ESPN, made a curious comparison to highlight the talent of the 18-year-old prodigy from Newport, Maine: “Cooper Flagg is Maine’s most impactful export since lobster.”
Jeff Teague: “Cooper Flagg is a great white hope. He has the potential to be a star”
Former NBA player Jeff Teague would bet on Dylan Harper (Rutgers) as the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft.
“I would see Dylan Harper as the number one choice… But I mean he’s not going to be number one because of Cooper Flagg for everything that comes with him. To be honest, he’s a great white hope. An athletic white guy like that had the potential to be a star,” Teague said on the ‘Club 520’ podcast.