‘The magic of Cooper Flagg’: Behind the Duke fab freshman’s 42 points against Notre Dame
After elevating Duke’s already raucous home crowd to new heights with two scintillating slam dunks four days earlier, Cooper Flagg offered the Cameron Crazies a game filled with special moments on Saturday.
Flagg put his name among Duke basketball’s elite, pouring in 42 points to propel the No. 4 Blue Devils past Notre Dame, 86-78, for their 10th consecutive win.
He set the ACC’s single-game scoring record for freshmen.
He became the first Duke player to score 40 points or more since JJ Redick in January 2006, 11 months before Flagg was born in Portland, Maine.
He became the first Duke player to score 40 points or more at Cameron since Tate Armstrong had 42 against Clemson in February 1976.
For all those memorable accomplishments, Flagg’s teammates marvel at how he goes about making it happen.
“He’s being himself,” Duke graduate student forward Sion James said. “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.”
Last Tuesday, Flagg’s dunks on back-to-back plays early in the second half appeared to break Pitt’s spirit as the Blue Devils rolled to a 76-47 win.
On Saturday, Flagg showed off more of his game, mostly below the rim.
He didn’t need an extraordinary shooting day on 3-pointers to get his points. Yes, he made 4 of 6 of them, but that was only one part of an outstanding day.
He drew 13 fouls, which allowed him to make 16 of 17 free throws.
He made 11 of 14 shots overall, meaning he missed just one shot from inside the 3-point line.
He scored from beyond the 3-point line when he was open and had his feet set to attempt that long of a shot. But he also drove the basket assertively, hitting mid-range shots or drawing fouls.
In addition, he led Duke with seven assists, deftly finding open teammates when Notre Dame defenders surrounded him.
“The last couple of weeks,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said, “he’s been really decisive. He hasn’t played with the ball as much and his passing is off the charts. So I think it creates a situation. Do you double or do you not? He just has done a great job recognizing the defense and then really attacking.”
After scoring 15 points in the first half, Flagg couldn’t avoid knowing how high his point total kept rising after halftime. The new scoreboard installed last summer above mid-court at Cameron displayed it for all to see so he, of course, took a peek.
“I see it the whole time, but it doesn’t really affect me either way,” Flagg said. “I mean, I kind of knew the whole time. I was just out there playing. When I’m in the game, I don’t really know what’s going on. I’m just playing like that.”
Kon Knueppel, Duke’s freshman forward, said the game plan was conducive to Flagg having an opportunity for a big scoring day. First, Notre Dame isn’t armed with a big shot-blocking center.
Secondly, the way the Irish reacted after Flagg tossed a perfect lob pass to 7-2 center Khaman Maluach for a dunk to start the scoring.
The Irish had to defend Maluach, who wound up with 19 points, sometimes at the expense of sticking closer to Flagg.
“Getting the ball in there,” Knueppel said, “we thought that would be a pretty good way to score. And obviously it was today.”
As good as it all felt, with Duke winning its 10th consecutive game and keeping its ACC record perfect, Scheyer kept a keen eye on how teams are trying to find new ways to defend Flagg. One of those ways made him so angry he bolted from the bench to near center court to draw his first technical foul of the season.
His outburst came after the officials called Flagg for an offensive foul after he collided with Notre Dame’s Matt Allocco. While arguing with the officials, Scheyer contended that Allocco grabbed Flagg to pull him closer then flopped when the contact arrived.
After the game, Scheyer went out of his way to praise the officials as a whole. But, he said, teams need to learn to defend Flagg within the rules.
“I have a ton of respect for those guys and what they do,” Scheyer said, “but people are going to do things to try to make it easier,to guard him. Grabbing and holding is going to be something that there. It wasn’t just one play isolated for me. It’s just understanding that he does get hit.”
Flagg is adept at drawing fouls. He’s been fouled 6.1 times per game this season, which is No. 82 nationally among Division I players. As the games keep rolling along, teams will try to find more ways to stop him without fouling him.
Meanwhile, Flagg keeps finding more and more ways to score in bunches, which makes him among the nation’s best players and Duke (14-2, 6-0 ACC) among the nation’s best teams.
That’s enough to keep Duke fans everywhere happy.
In the Spotlight designates ongoing topics of high interest that are driven by The News & Observer’s focus on accountability reporting.
This story was originally published January 12, 2025 at 6:00 AM.