Luke DeCock: At the end of a long season, Duke's freshmen are all grown up, and leading the way

Luke DeCock, The News & Observer on Mar 28, 2025

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NEWARK, N.J. — The gift was a missed shot, a long rebound, the ball in Cooper Flagg’s hands as the final seconds of the first half ticked away. A scramble across midcourt, the quick gathering of feet, the red lights illuminating the backboard as the ball was in the air.

Flagg saw it go through, turned his back to the basket and screamed, less a command than a primal roar as his teammates swept toward him.

“Let’s (expletive) go, man!” Flagg howled. “Let’s (expletive) go!”

This was very R-rated for a player — for a team — that often looks so PG, with Flagg’s jumble of limbs, Kon Knueppels’ flushed cheeks, Khaman Maluach’s grin. These freshmen were kids once, not all that long ago, and here we are at the end of March and they have become something else entirely.

What distinguishes them now from the veterans brought in to mentor and support them? From a three-year ACC survivor like Tyrese Proctor? Nothing, nothing now. Duke’s old and Duke’s young have met in the middle after 37 games, and there was no stronger proof of that than Thursday.

Not only did the Blue Devils produce their fourth-best offensive performance of the season in a 100-93 win over Arizona, they did it against a tenacious and physical defensive team that offered nothing easy. And when Duke wavered to let a 19-point lead be whittled down to two possessions late, the Blue Devils did what they had to do to close out a 100-93 win — and without making a shot from anywhere but the free-throw line in the final four minutes.

Sion James made two of the Blue Devils’ final 11 free throws, but it was mostly Flagg and Knueppel at the line, nearly perfect, unfazed by the moment, prepared not by all the close games Duke has played — there have not been many — but by absorbing all of the lessons of the season, closer to whatever comes next than whoever they were in November.

“They’re not afraid,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said. “You hope to recruit that, but until they get here, you don’t fully know. I have a bunch of guys, man, they’re killers. They’re fearless, and they sure weren’t afraid of this moment.”

They’re not kids any more. Against North Carolina in Charlotte, without Flagg, and against Baylor and now against Arizona, they have occasionally put themselves in difficult positions but they have also found a way out, relying not only on superlative talent but gained and gathered savvy.

But still a lot of superlative talent.

At this point, it seems like the only thing that can stop Flagg is the floor under the basket, where he slipped twice in the Blue Devils’ last loss, at Clemson, and where he landed awkwardly on his left ankle during the ACC Tournament.

Flagg hit the buzzer-beater to close the first half, swatted a shot into the Arizona band, hit clutch free throws and scored 30 points from all over the court. The Wildcats had no answer for him, and he’s only getting better, his ceiling still somewhere far out beyond view.

But with Caleb Love saving his best against Duke for last, a Peak Caleb Love performance of 35 points on 5-for-11 shooting from 3-point range — perhaps not including his biggest single shot against Duke, but his best portfolio of them — it took everything Flagg and Knueppel and the rest of the Blue Devils had to hold on to the end, especially with Maluach and Patrick Ngomba both in foul trouble. Maluach played the final five minutes with four fouls without fouling out, blocking a Love 3-pointer that would have cut the lead to five. Arizona never got any closer than six.

It took poise and composure and execution, all the hallmarks of experience and collected wisdom, and it radiated from the freshmen just as it did James or Mason Gillis or Maliq Brown, who made an unexpected first-half cameo because of all the fouls.

“The fact that we can play so many freshmen and they’re all poised, they’re all composed, they’re all smart, they all are physically and mentally ready to play in a game like this, it says a lot about them,” James said. “We’ve got a special team. That’s the biggest thing. We’ve got a special team.”

They’re grown up now, one game from the Final Four, and that one game is going to be the greatest test they have faced yet.

After watching Alabama shatter the NCAA Tournament record for 3-pointers, going a staggering 25 for 51 to top the 21 that Loyola Marymount hit in a 149-115 win over Michigan in 1990, Duke will be glad it gets the Crimson Tide in the regional final instead of Thursday.

Whoever Alabama played Thursday — BYU, the Boston Celtics, the Harlem Globetrotters — the Crimson Tide would have ended their season. It just happened to be BYU. Alabama scored 113. Duke scored 100, 74 of those by freshmen, but that’s merely a label at this point.

They have gone through the season and almost come out the other side, something different, good enough to not only handle a game like this but rise above it. They’re not quite old, but they’re no longer young, either.