Cooper Flagg entered the season as the most hyped basketball prospect in years. Before even enrolling at Duke, Flagg was considered a near-lock as the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA draft. Several NBA All-Stars gushed about Flagg last summer when he more than held his own in scrimmages against the U.S. Olympic team. Flagg, a 6-foot-9 forward, wasn’t intimated at all on a floor with multiple future Hall of Famers.
Still, for all the attention Flagg received, he has exceeded expectations, leading Duke to the Final Four, where the Blue Devils on Saturday will face Houston at the Alamodome in San Antonio. How impressive is Flagg? He is having the best freshman season in NCAA men’s basketball history when considering individual and team success.
Of course, that comes with a caveat. Before 1972, save for certain exceptions during war time, freshmen were ineligible to play on their varsity teams. That means three-time, first team Associated Press All-Americans such as UCLA centers Lew Alcindor and Bill Walton, Cincinnati guard Oscar Robertson, Ohio State forward Jerry Lucas, LSU guard Pete Maravich and North Carolina State forward David Thompson didn’t compete as freshmen. Plus, until the 1990s, most players remained in college for multiple seasons, making it harder for freshmen to stand out.
Still, these days players are staying in college longer in part because they can make hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in Name, Image and Likeness deals and the NBA doesn’t draft many traditional forwards or centers who post up but are not outside shooters. Flagg, who just turned 18 in December, is one of the youngest players in college basketball, although it is hard to see that with the way he is playing.
Flagg is leading Duke with 18.9 points, 7.5 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.4 steals and 1.3 blocks per game. As CBS Sports noted in January, former LSU guard Ben Simmons in the 2015-16 season is the only freshman to lead a team in all five of those categories since the NCAA began tracking those statistics in the 1985-86 season. But LSU didn’t even make the NCAAs that year, while Duke is the national title favorite and has two other likely NBA lottery picks in freshmen Kon Knueppel and Khalan Maluach.
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Flagg last month was named a unanimous first team AP All-American and the Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year. He also won the NCAA tournament’s East Regional Most Outstanding Player award this past weekend in Newark N.J., averaging 23 points, 7.5 rebounds and 5 assists in victories over Arizona and Alabama.
Flagg is first in analyst Ken Pomeroy’s Player of the Year standings. His 2.710 rating is the second-highest since KenPom began publishing the data in the 2010-11 season, only trailing Wisconsin’s Frank Kaminsky, who had a 2.794 rating as a senior in the 2014-15 season. Former Duke center Jahlil Okafor has the second-best KenPom rating for a freshman with a 1.969 in the 2014-15 season, well behind Flagg.
Flagg already has been named the national Player of the Year by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association, and he is likely to win one or more of the AP, John Wooden and Naismith national player of the year awards when they are announced this month. Former Texas forward Kevin Durant, who averaged 25.8 points, 11.1 rebounds, 1.9 blocks and 1.9 steals per game in the 2006-07 season; former Kentucky center Anthony Davis, who averaged 14.2 points, 10.4 rebounds, 4.7 blocks and 1.4 steals in 2011-12; and former Duke forward Zion Williamson, who averaged 22.6 points, 8.9 rebounds, 2.1 steals and 1.8 blocks per game in 2018-19, are the only freshmen to be named player of the year. They each swept all four of those national honors.
Davis ended up leading Kentucky to the 2012 NCAA tournament championship, while Texas lost in the second round in 2007 and Duke lost in the East Regional final in 2019. Since the AP began choosing All-American teams in the 1947-48 season, there have been 12 other freshmen besides Durant, Davis and Williams who have made first team AP All-American and been selected among the top three picks in that year’s NBA draft: Ohio State’s Greg Oden (2007), Kansas State’s Michael Beasley (2008), Kentucky’s John Wall (2010), Duke’s Jabari Parker (2014), Okafor (2015), Ohio State’s D’Angelo Russell (2015), UCLA’s Lonzo Ball (2017), Duke’s Marvin Bagley (2018), Arizona’s DeAndre Ayton (2018), Duke’s R.J. Barrett (2019), Oklahoma State’s Cade Cunningham (2021) and Alabama’s Brandon Miller (2023). Oden, Wall, Davis, Williamson and Cunningham were the overall top selections in their drafts.
Flagg will join that elite group in June, when he is a shoo-in to be the No. 1 pick in the draft. Still, he has at least one more college game remaining and is aiming to cap off the best freshman season in history.
On Saturday, the Blue Devils (35-3) face a difficult test in Houston (34-4). The teams were No. 1 and No. 2 in the AP poll entering the tournament and have the two longest winning streaks in Division 1, with Houston winning its past 17 games and Duke winning its past 15 games. Duke has the nation’s best offense, according to KenPom, while Houston has the best defense. Duke and Houston are first and second, respectively, in KenPom’s adjusted efficiency margin rating this season and No. 2 and No. 6 all-time since KenPom began tracking that metric in the 1996-97 season. Florida and Auburn, the other two semifinalists, are third and fourth this season, per KenPom, and top 10 all-time in that metric.
If Duke wins its sixth national title, Flagg will likely lead the way and could earn another accolade. Only five freshmen have been named the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player: Utah forward Arnie Ferrin (in 1944 during World War II), Louisville center Pervis Ellison (1986), Syracuse forward Carmelo Anthony (2003), Davis (2012) and Duke point guard Tyus Jones (2015).
As he sat in Duke’s locker room last Saturday night following the East Regional final, Flagg reflected upon the Blue Devils making the Final Four, another highlight in a memorable freshman season.
“I think it’s huge, surreal,” Flagg said. “I don’t think I’ve processed it yet. I’m kind of just still trying to be in the moment, enjoy it with these guys and just cherish these moments that we have left together.”