Duke’s Cooper Flagg makes lasting memory in NBA showcase at Madison Square Garden

Michael Cohen

College Football and College Basketball Writer

NEW YORK — The moment so many of these fans came to see — the ones proudly wearing blue and white, anyway — unfolded barely a minute into the second half of an already lopsided affair. A turnover by Illinois point guard Kasparas Jakucionis, the highly talented B-side of Saturday’s primetime showcase, gave way to Duke star Cooper Flagg loping across midcourt with nary a body between him and the hoop. Flagg gathered the ball in his mitt-sized right hand and then vaulted into the air for a vicious slam that set Madison Square Garden ablaze, extending the Blue Devils’ lead to 19 before scores of spectators had even returned from their halftime concession runs.

Cooper Flagg throws down VICIOUS DUNK after steal as Duke leads Illinois, 56-37

That bucket, which Flagg bolstered with another soaring, two-handed jam moments later, followed by a muscled layup through contact that gave him the chance to flex both biceps in front of Duke’s thickest section of supporters, was exactly what everyone around the program envisioned when this game was announced six months ago: the most hyped high school prospect in years making a lasting memory in The World’s Most Famous Arena, dunking his way through a record-breaking season as he leads an ultra-talented blue blood toward what could be the program’s first national championship since 2015 — all while cementing his case as the presumptive No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft.

What was billed by both coaches as a matchup befitting an NCAA Tournament game quickly devolved into a one-sided hiding that revealed significant talent discrepancies between the two teams, with Flagg and his blue-chip-laden supporting cast rolling to a 110-67 victory that was hardly competitive beyond the opening few minutes. Flagg, who finished with 16 points, seven rebounds and five assists, was one of seven players to reach double-figure scoring in the Blue Devils’ fourth consecutive blowout win, conference affiliation be damned. It was Duke’s 20th victory in the last 21 games and a glaring, nationally televised reminder that Flagg is far from the only elite prospect on head coach Jon Scheyer’s incredibly deep roster, which might be undervalued at No. 3 in the country and 24-3 overall.

“Whew, yeah,” Illinois head coach Brad Underwood said to begin his postgame news conference. “Duke’s good.”

The veracity of that statement, which seemed clear from the moment Scheyer inked the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class, including several high-profile transfers, was part of the impetus for why this event happened at all. The game itself, dubbed the “SentinelOne Classic,” was a relatively late addition to this year’s college basketball calendar, with the formal announcement coming on Aug. 14, 2024, after the Blue Devils had sought a willing dance partner for an increasingly rare, late-February, non-conference matchup between high-level programs. By that point — a little less than three months before the regular season began and near the conclusion of college basketball’s summer workouts — both coaches were keenly aware of the NBA-caliber talent that graced their respective rosters, including a half-dozen potential first-round picks next summer alone.

For Scheyer, that meant a chance to showcase the nation’s No. 1 overall recruit in Flagg, a native of Newport, Maine, which is roughly seven hours from New York City, and the incredible collection of talent around him. In addition to Flagg, who will almost certainly be the first player selected in this year’s draft, the Blue Devils also boast two more likely lottery picks in freshmen Kon Knueppel (15 points, four rebounds) and Khaman Maluach (13 points, seven rebounds), not to mention a pair of likely second-round picks in Tulane transfer Sion James (11 points, six assists) and junior Tyrese Proctor (12 points, four assists). There’s a strong chance Duke will produce three top-10 picks in the same draft for the first time since 2019 — when Zion Williamson went No. 1 overall, R.J. Barrett went No. 3 overall and Cam Reddish went No. 10 overall — and just the second time in program history.

For Underwood, who told reporters earlier this week that he’d like to play one non-conference game per season at Madison Square Garden, scheduling this game against this team meant creating an incredible stage for Jakucionis, the true freshman from Lithuania by way of FC Barcelona in Spain. Scouts and NBA executives had been familiar with Jakucionis for several years, both as a member of Barcelona’s second team — though he did make some cameos with the club’s top squad — and as a leading figure for the Lithuanian youth national teams. He averaged 13 points, 4.4 rebounds and 3.9 assists per game in the FIBA U18 European Championship in 2023 and then was named to the all-tournament team for the Adidas Next Generation Tournament in spring 2024 when he exploded for 17.9 points, 9 assists, 6.3 rebounds and 2.9 steals. Now, during his first season in this country, Jakucionis has already set the Illinois freshman record with 10 games of 20-plus points and will join Flagg in the lottery later this year, perhaps creeping into the top five selections. His Illinois teammate, freshman forward Will Riley, is also viewed as a possible first-round pick.

“When you’re talking about a big-time, nationally televised game in Madison Square Garden,” an NBA executive told FOX Sports earlier in the week, “you always want to see how they compete in just the same way when it becomes do-or-die in conference tournaments or the NCAA Tournament. Let’s say one of them has a poor game. You don’t want to over-emphasize that, but it does go into the discussion. Players get reputations as being able to step onto the big stage and play well or not. Will one of them be overly helped or overly hurt? Probably not. But it does help you, you know, in terms of trying to figure out their mentality, where they are in terms of what platform they’re ready to play on, and all that stuff.”

The stage was as decorated as it gets in college basketball before a sold-out crowd of 19,812 stuffing Madison Square Garden to the ceiling. Fans of both programs flooded into Manhattan for an evening on the sport’s biggest stage, the first of two high-profile showdowns this venue will host in roughly 16 hours, with No. 10 St. John’s hosting UConn on Sunday afternoon (Noon ET, FOX). Their orange and blue regalia matched the lighting on the exterior of this famous building, easily borrowed and repurposed from the New York Knicks for the Illini and Blue Devils, respectively. Many in the sold-out crowd were still buzzing about catching matinées on Broadway before filing into the arena long before tipoff on Saturday, injecting the pregame atmosphere with a March Madness feel. Duke’s fans have long referred to The Garden as “Cameron North” in reference to Cameron Indoor Stadium, their on-campus arena in Durham, North Carolina, and chants of “Cooooooooooooooop” reverberated when Flagg was introduced with the starting lineup. The Blue Devils’ mascot sported a piece of tape across its forehead with the letters ILL-ANNOYING scrawled in marker, eager for the game to begin.

Duke came out firing from 3-point territory and quickly sunk the Illini on a night when Underwood’s team missed its first 16 attempts from beyond the arc and 24 of 26 by game’s end. Not even the early foul trouble for Flagg, who sat for lengthy portions of the first half, would prevent the Blue Devils from scoring 54 points in the opening stanza and leaving their opponent for dead. Jakucionis didn’t attempt a field goal in the opening 10 minutes, ceding opportunities to a group of running mates far less talented than the players surrounding Flagg, and was responsible for three of the misfires from long range. He finished with 14 points on 4-for-10 shooting while grabbing seven rebounds and dishing out six assists.

But with the second half came a flurry of eye-popping moments from Flagg, whose preternatural skills for a player his size — listed at 6-foot 9 and 205 pounds — were readily apparent on both ends of the floor. He appeared as comfortable leading the Blue Devils in transition, where they held a 12-2 edge in fast-break points, as he was bullying through contact for layups or fouls drawn around the rim. He held three fingers in the air after burying an open triple from the right wing early in the second half and later flipped an easy lob to Maluach for an alley-oop when the Illinois defense collapsed too much attention on the game’s biggest star.

“I just think that the physicality and the way he’s playing against guys that have been in college — they can be six years older than him, some of these guys he’s playing against — it doesn’t even faze him,” the NBA executive said. “I think from that standpoint, his mentality, his physicality, that kind of stuff, is what has been as impressive as anything.”

The final ovation for Flagg and his NBA-bound friends came with 6:35 remaining, by which point Duke’s lead had stretched to 37 and Scheyer could remove his starters for good, saving their legs for a date with Miami in three days’ time. It’s one of only four games remaining before the Blue Devils embark on the postseason, none of them against ranked opponents. And with as well as Scheyer’s team is playing right now — four wins by an average of 29.5 points per game since the surprise loss at Clemson on Feb. 8 — it might be a while before his group is truly tested down the stretch, if anyone can test this team at all.

On the biggest stage and beneath the brightest lights, everything went according to plan.

“Just a good, old-fashioned butt kicking,” Underwood said. “Give them all the credit.”

Michael Cohen covers college football and basketball for FOX Sports with an emphasis on the Big Ten. Follow him on Twitter @Michael_Cohen13.

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