[autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag] made several heroic plays for the Duke Blue Devils during his 26-point outing against the Kentucky Wildcats on Tuesday night, but two late turnovers handed the SEC program a 77-72 victory in a monster second-half comeback.
The Blue Devils led by nine points at the break, but it was actually the Wildcats who came out of the gates on fire. Kentucky ripped off an 18-9 run in the first six minutes thanks to 3-pointers from veteran transfers Andrew Carr, Kerr Kriisa, and Ansley Almonor on three consecutive possessions.
Both teams entered Tuesday’s game shooting better than 40% from 3-point range, but the Wildcats made five of their first seven looks from distance while Duke managed to make just one of their first five.
Despite the shooting imbalance, however, the Blue Devils kept pace, and they eventually found other ways to score as their lead began to bloom.
Flagg, [autotag]Tyrese Proctor[/autotag], and [autotag]Kon Knueppel[/autotag] handed command of the offense back and forth in the opening 20 minutes. Proctor, the returning junior, notched seven of the team’s first 11 points in a variety of ways. He challenged the Kentucky interior with a drive before lofting a high floater off the top of the glass, he found the net on a contested mid-range jumper, and he opened up space for himself on the perimeter with a pump fake before draining a triple. All three of those bucks came in a two-minute stretch.
Flagg stepped up next, and between the 15:10 and 7:32 marks in the first half, he scored 10 of Duke’s 17 points thanks to a quartet of free throws.
Knueppel, who actually missed his first three shots from the floor, grabbed the baton from his fellow freshman phenom and took over from there. Kentucky’s Otega Oweh tried and failed to steal a pass on the perimeter, leaving Knueppel open for a 3-point look, and the Wisconsin native punished the Wildcats in kind to make it a 33-26 game.
Knueppel notched seven of Duke’s last 16 points in the opening frame, and that trio combined for 34 of Duke’s 46 in the first half.
The Blue Devils maintained some distance for the first part of the second half, leading by at least four points for the first 10 minutes, but the 3-point shooting remained a problem. Despite the clutch makes from Proctor and Knueppel, Duke made four of their 22 3-point attempts for the game.
The Wildcats took advantage. Sophomore forward Brandon Garrison, a former Oklahoma State Cowboy, scored six straight points before Kriisa buried a deep three to make it a 65-64 ballgame with 5:28 left on the clock.
Flagg tried multiple times to save the day in the final stretch. He hurtled out of nowhere to deflect a Garrison layup that would have given Kentucky the outright lead, and he earned two trips to the free-throw line on the ensuring offensive possession to keep the lead at three points. When Kentucky took the lead with 2:40 to play, the 17-year-old netted a contested jumper and drew another whistle to tip the score back in Duke’s favor, and he found a way to make a bouncing floater in the final minute that tied the game at 72 points apiece.
It all came unraveled in the final 15 seconds, however. With the score still tied and the ball in Duke’s hands, Flagg drifted into traffic to let Oweh swat it away from behind him. Now down two points with the clock ticking down, Flagg took the ball up the court and lost control near the baseline, putting his hand down out of bounds to give the ball back again.
Flagg was the only Blue Devil to score over the final 6:30, and he was the only Blue Devil to make a shot from the floor over the final 10:50. Proctor and Knueppel only tacked on four points after the break, and the Wildcats won the second half by 14 points.
The Blue Devils play at home against Wofford on Saturday, their last game before a road trip that includes Arizona and Kansas.
