[autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag] entered the college basketball landscape with some of the highest expectations of the decade, but it’s hard to imagine anyone pictured 42-point games in his future.
The Duke basketball freshman made 11 of his 14 shots from the floor, including four 3-pointers, and 16 of his 17 free throws in an 86-78 win over the Notre Dame Fighting Irish on Saturday. He broke the ACC freshman record for points in a game, breaking a 12-year record held by former Boston College star Olivier Hanlan to help the Blue Devils avoid an upset.
Flagg is now averaging 19.1 points, 8.3 rebounds, 3.9 assists, 1.6 steals, and 1.3 blocks per game in his first (and likely only) season with the Blue Devils. Carlos Boozer, who won a national title in Durham, thinks he’s somehow been better than expected.
“I think, offensively, we’ve seen him grow from the start of the season,” Boozer said on ACC Network after the game. “He’s surpassed some of the expectations that we had. I thought he was going to be the best freshman in the ACC, but now he has a real shot to be the national player of the year.”
Through his first 16 games, Flagg has six double-doubles, and he’s scored at least 20 points in eight different games. He’s done the latter against Duke’s best opponents as well, tallying 26 against the Kentucky Wildcats, 24 against Arizona, and 22 against the Auburn Tigers.
To Boozer’s point about improvement, Flagg has made 66.7% of his shots and 64.3% of his threes since December 31. He’s finished better than 58% from the floor in each of Duke’s last four games, and even former North Carolina Tar Heels star Joel Berry II echoed Boozer’s praise for the young Blue Devil.
“You know he was going to come in an impact the game in a lot of ways,” Berry said. “But I didn’t see this.”
