Flying Flagg
Playing with an edge, always on the attack
Jim Sumner, GoDuke The Magazine
Cooper Flagg didn’t have a good first half against Pittsburgh on January 7. He picked up his second foul with over 12 minutes left, took a seat and came back in about six game minutes later.
By his own admission Flagg was “floating a little bit too much.”
He ended the half with five points in 13 minutes. Duke led 34-24. Flagg isn’t the Blue Devils’ only weapon. But the best version of this Duke team does not have Cooper Flagg scoring five points in a half against a good team.
The second half didn’t start any better. Upset at an apparent bad out-of-bounds call, Flagg committed his third foul.
Jon Scheyer left him in. Like Mike Krzyzewski before him, Scheyer wants his best players to learn to play in foul trouble.
Eight seconds later Flagg jumped the route on an entry pass and set off down the court. Three dribbles later Flagg elevated for a dunk. He was challenged at the basket by Pitt’s Guillermo Diaz Graham, a seven-foot rim protector.
Diaz Graham never had a chance.
To add insult to injury, Diaz Graham was assessed a personal foul. Flagg completed the three-point play and Duke led 40-26.
“I got the steal,” he said after the game, “hit a quick burst, the first defender was still coming toward their basket, kind of got around him, pushed it out, went and made a play. I was kind of mad at myself for a stupid foul. It was definitely a little bit anger and I took it out on the rim.”
Duke won 76-47, with Flagg scoring 14 of his game-high 19 points after intermission.
The dunk quickly went viral. Flagg rated it an 8.5 on a scale of 1 to 10, which says more about Flagg’s perfectionism than the quality of the dunk.
But it wasn’t just this one play. It’s the message it sent.
Flagg came to Duke with the reputation as a skilled finesse player, a cerebral, high-IQ player with the ability to see the whole floor and process information at an elite level.
But there was nothing cerebral about the dunk over Diaz Graham. It was pure fury.
Following the game Scheyer let the world onto a secret the Duke family had long known.
“He does get angry. He’s got an edge to him.”
Cooper Flagg didn’t exactly sneak up on the college basketball universe. His origin story is well known. Growing up in Newport, Maine, Flagg and twin brother Ace learned the basics from their mother Kelly (nee Bowman), a former star at Maine, and father Ralph, who played for Eastern Maine Community College.
Flagg was named Gatorade Maine Player of the Year as a freshman at Nokomis Regional High School. He led a group of Maine friends to successes on the AAU circuit, transferred to Montverde Academy in Florida, reclassified to the prep class of 2024 and led Montverde to the 2024 Chipotle Nationals title.
Flagg won numerous awards as best prep player in the country, the Naismith among them.
Heady stuff for Flagg but hardly unusual for a program that routinely signs top talent and produced nine ACC Freshmen of the Year between 2012 and 2023.
But Flagg one-upped them in the summer of 2024 when he became the youngest player ever to be named to the U.S. Select Team, a group of players picked to scrimmage against the U.S. Olympic Team.
By all accounts, Flagg more than held his own against some of the best players in the world. Kevin Durant praised Flagg as a “hell of a player. Somebody who’s only going to get better with more experience. Seventeen years old and coming in here playing like a vet, almost. No emotion. Just going out there and doing his job.”
Was the hype train out of control?
“As far as hype, that’s something you learn to deal with,” he said on Duke’s media day. “For me, it’s just about playing basketball.”
The backlash began. The re-class made Flagg one of the youngest players in college ball; he didn’t turn 18 until December 21. Would that be a problem? Would he be too skinny to handle the physical play in the paint? Could he shoot well enough to keep opposing defenders honest?
Questions asked and answered. Flagg has never been less than very good at Duke. He scored 18 points in his first Duke game, a win over Maine, grabbed 11 rebounds in his second, a win over Army. His 22 points, 11 rebounds, four assists, three blocks and two steals keyed Duke to a huge win over Auburn.
But great players aren’t satisfied with being very good. Flagg knew there was better out there. He scored 26 points in a close loss against Kentucky but turned it over twice in the final minute, a valuable lesson that moves that worked in high school wouldn’t always work in college. He was held to nine points against Seattle, six against Incarnate Word.
Flagg went back home over the holiday break and — to borrow a word from the jazz world — woodshedded.
“I grew up with my dad, late nights, early mornings, with him rebounding for me. I think just getting in the gym with my dad and having that old experience was really good for my mental (health) and put me in a really good spot.”
Scheyer says it didn’t end in Maine.
“It’s the work he’s been doing with Coach (Chris) Carrawell every day,” Scheyer said after the Notre Dame game. “He didn’t hesitate to shoot and he ended up hitting. He’s done a great job recognizing the defense and then really attacking whatever’s there for him.”
The results have elevated Flagg from very good to best-in-class. He followed the Pitt game with a 42-point performance against Notre Dame, setting a new ACC single-game scoring record for freshmen.
Flagg accomplished this making 11-of-14 from the field, 16-of-17 from the line.
“I’m just trying to do whatever it takes,” Flagg said following the game. “From the start they kind of were off me, leaving me open in the corner a couple of times early. I’m just going to take open shots and make the right plays.”
Flagg only played 28 minutes in an 89-54 win over an overmatched Miami squad but gave Duke 13 points, seven rebounds and six assists.
Duke’s January 18 visit to Boston College saw numerous family and friends make the trip down to Chestnut Hill. Duke trailed early against the physical Eagles but Flagg keyed an 88-63 win with 28 points, responding to chants of “over-rated” and flagrant fouls with physical finishes of his own.
Playing with an edge.
After turning in one of his most complete performances in a rout of North Carolina to start February, Flagg led Duke with 20.0 points, 8.0 rebounds and 4.2 assists per game, shooting 48 percent from the field, 35 percent from beyond the arc, 80 percent from the line. Only Danny Ferry in 1987 has led Duke in scoring, rebounding and assists for a season. But Flagg also leads Duke in blocks and steals. Ferry was third on that team in blocks, fourth in steals.
Opponents have searched in vain for weaknesses to exploit.
After Flagg scored 24 points to lead Duke to an 88-65 win over Virginia Tech, Hokies coach Mike Young said, “He’s terrific. Great skills, floor it, pass it, makes the right basketball plays. Admired him, watching him on film and saw a lot and after competing against him, I admire him (him) even more so.”
Pitt’s Jeff Capel compared him to Blake Griffin, a player he coached at Oklahoma.
“There are a lot of attributes that he has where he’s so talented. But to me, the most unique one is how competitive he is because you rarely see that, especially from a young guy, a guy that just turned 18 years old. And in my opinion, that’s what makes this Duke team different from last year’s because when your best player is like that, then it kind of permeates through the whole team.”
Flagg came into the season as the presumptive number one pick in the 2025 NBA Draft and has solidified that status. But he says he’ll worry about that down the line. Winning games and championships is the goal for now, the only goal.
Still, he’s going to pick up lots of hardware along the way. After the UNC game he was selected ACC Player of the Week for the fourth time, becoming the first freshman to earn that honor four times in a season. He was also selected the ACC Rookie of the Week for the ninth time (in 13 weeks), one shy of the league record for Rookie of the Week honors in a season.
Scheyer said after the Pitt game, “To me he is the best player (in the country). I think he’s proven that with who we’ve played, the competition, the fact that he’s done it in such a mature way. He doesn’t hunt numbers. He just puts up numbers as the game comes to him. He plays the game the right way. For me, when we step on the floor, we have the best player in the country.”
Scheyer says he wants Flagg to continue to be an alpha.
Referencing the Miami game Scheyer said, “I don’t want to see him hold back anything. My biggest knock on him would be at times deferring or being too good a teammate. I want him in that killer instinct, attack mode all the time.”
This story originally appeared in the 16.6 issue of GoDuke The Magazine – February 2025. Dedicated to sharing the stories of Duke student-athletes, present and past, GoDuke The Magazine is published for Duke Athletics by LEARFIELD with editorial offices at 3100 Tower Blvd., Suite 404, Durham, NC 27707. To subscribe, join the Iron Dukes or call (336) 831-0767.