Cooper Flagg joins USA Select Team as only college player, will practice against US Olympic team

Cooper Flagg was the only college basketball player named to the USA Select Team on Friday with the goal of helping the Olympic team prepare.

[autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag]’s trajectory into stardom continues to rise at nearly meteoric levels.

He was as decorated a high school recruit as the prep ranks have seen in quite some time, and now, as we close in on seeing him play for the Duke Blue Devils in under six months, Flagg can add another incredible achievement to his resume.

The USA Select Team will help the country’s Olympic team practice ahead of this summer’s games in Paris, and Duke’s star freshman is the only college player set to join said Select Team from July 6-8.

At 17, Flagg becomes the first college player to play or practice with the U.S. national team since Doug McDermott and Marcus Smart participated at a minicamp for NBA stars in Las Vegas in 2013.

In many ways, this could be a harbinger of things to come for the talented forward. Six members of the current Olympic Team served on Select Teams, and 30 players who served on select teams went on to play for USA Basketball at either a FIBA World Cup or the Olympics. More than anything, he gets to test himself against the best players the USA has to offer, even before ever playing a minute in college basketball.

Team USA enters the Games as the top-ranked team in the world, but after a disappointing showing (by USA standards) at last year’s FIBA World Cup saw the Americans finish in fourth place, Team USA vowed to come back stronger in France. Managing director [autotag]Grant Hill[/autotag], another Duke legend, assembled names like LeBron James, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Jayson Tatum, Anthony Edwards, Joel Embiid, and Kawhi Leonard for the Olympic squad

It was an incredible job doing so and one Hill should be proud of. The real work begins as Team USA now has to gel as a unit and prepare to play, a goal the Select Team is meant to help with.

The amount of insight and tips Flagg can learn in those days practicing against  Team USA could be invaluable as he partakes in his only season in the NCAA.

Flagg is no stranger to USA Basketball. He was a team member that won gold at the 2022 FIBA U17 Basketball World Cup. He was picked as USA Basketball’s male athlete of the year for 2022, becoming the youngest player ever to win that honor.

There is also precedent for Select Team members joining the official roster in the event of injuries or other events. Keldon Johnson of the San Antonio Spurs was a Select Team member and ended up on the Olympics roster for 2021.

If that were to happen, Duke’s two highest-rated recruits from the 2024 class playing in the Olympics in Flagg and center [autotag]Khaman Maluach[/autotag], who is set to play for South Sudan.