With under eight minutes left in Duke’s comfortable and convincing 85-65 victory over Alabama in Saturday night’s East regional final of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, Blue Devils freshman phenom Cooper Flagg found himself with the basketball, being hounded by a smaller Crimson Tide player. That Alabama player was the 6 ft. 1 in. Mark Sears, who like Flagg was a first-team All-American this season, and who happened to hit 10 three-pointers—yes, 10 three-pointers—in Alabama’s Sweet 16 game against BYU two nights prior. The nearly 19,000 fans who filed into the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. came to see fireworks from Flagg, who is 6 ft. 9 in., and Sears. And here they were, going one-on-one in a key moment.
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Alabama trailed by just seven. Flagg hadn’t really found his shooting touch: the freshman finished the game just 6-for-16 from the field, with16 points. And though Flagg has eight inches on him, Sears refused to back down. He tried to push Flagg out of position, but it ultimately didn’t matter: Flagg was able to convert a short jumper over his smaller fellow All-American, to give Duke more breathing room late in the game. A few minutes later, Sears again tried to disturb Flagg while he had the ball: Flagg even fell to the floor. But he kept his dribble, stood up and again drove to the hoop on Sears, again scoring on him, this time giving Duke a 76-58 cushion, with just over three minutes of the game left.
Sears dribbled down court, bullied his way into the key for a point-blank, straight- on chip shot—and missed it, adding to a frustrating evening that saw him shoot just 2-12 from the field with a single three-pointer (forget about double-digits). With that miss, Alabama was done for.
Flagg beat Alabama when it counted. “It’s not going to be your night every night,” said Flagg, the National Player of the Year in college basketball and likely the top overall NBA draft pick in June. “Don’t hang your head.”
Duke, winner of five national championships during the legendary tenure of Hall of Fame former coach Mike Krzyzewski, moves on to its first Final Four since 2022, Coach K’s last season at the helm. It’s the first appearance for his successor, former player and assistant coach Jon Scheyer. Duke will face the winner of Sunday’s Houston-Tennessee Elite Eight game in the national semifinals in San Antonio next Saturday. The deep and talented Blue Devils seem set to collide with Florida, who on Saturday also advanced to the Final Four, thanks to a thrilling comeback win against Texas Tech. Next week, in the other national semifinal, the Gators will face the winner of Sunday’s Auburn-Michigan State regional final. No college player in recent memory has hit more clutch NCAA tournament shots, in key moments, than Florida guard Walter Clayton Jr.
Still, the focus will be on Flagg in Texas, for good reason: the most well-rounded freshman basketball player in the college game since Kevin Durant in 2007 is still playing for a championship, for the most blue-chip brand (Duke) in the land. Durant, who played for the University of Texas, never made it out of the second round.
There’s been a lot of groaning this March about the lack of upsets in the men’s NCAA basketball tournament. But at this point, the griping about Cinderellas—or lack thereof—feels tired. There’s nothing wrong with seeing the best players, and best teams, make it to the last stage of the Big Dance. Duke over Alabama in an Elite Eight prime-time clash, Duke potentially facing top-overall seed Florida in the April 7 national championship: no problems there.
Earlier in March, Flagg missed the remainder of the ACC tournament after injuring his ankle in Duke’s opening game: he was placed in a wheelchair, and fans feared the worst. But he made it back for March Madness, and looks quite fine: Flagg, who was named the Most Outstanding Player of the tournament’s East region, probably turned in the finest freshman performance in NCAA tournament history on Thursday, when he scored 30 points, dished out seven assists, grabbed six rebounds and blocked three blocks in Duke’s 100-93 victory over Arizona. He’s the only freshman in history to ever record at least 25 points, five rebounds, and five assists in the Sweet 16 round or later. And even though he missed a few shoots he usually makes on Saturday night, he still grabbed 9 rebounds, went up high to block a shot and dished out three assists, including another alley-oop to center Khaman Maluach: on Thursday, Cooper fed the big man for two-straight alley-oop slams.
“I get more satisfaction, more energy, more enjoyment throwing a lob to Khaman or Pat [Ngongba II, another Duke center] than I do scoring, shooting three or anything like that,” Flagg told TIME in the Duke locker room after the game. “Setting up a teammate for a dunk like that, it gives me a lot of momentum, it gives me a lot of energy. So those are probably some of my favorite things to do on the court.”
Before the game, a young fan shouted “Cooper, can you sign my underwear?” to Flagg during warmups: odd, yes, but a surefire sign of the mania he’s already creating. After the game, his mother Kelly, who played at the University of Maine, beamed as Flagg and his teammates celebrated, while wearing a blue t-shirt with about a dozen or so images of her son on it. Another young fan had made it and sent it to her. Flagg grew up in a small town in Maine, a state not at all known for producing top basketball talent. “This is more than we had ever really dared to dream of,” says Kelly.
“What I’ve been trying to prove my whole life, and on this journey I’ve been on, is that it doesn’t matter where you’re from or what resources you have, as long as you’re dedicated and you give 100%, you can make it out, you can make it,” says Flagg.
Flagg continues to stay on message about his future as a pro: he’s promising that he’s living in the moment, cherishing this year in college at Duke, and not at all thinking about next year. With two more wins, he’d finish off what would arguably be one of the best seasons of college basketball in the history of this storied game.
Not a bad opening act.