Cooper Flagg Shines as Freshman Star at Cameron Indoor

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00:00Let me ask you this, Mike, Cooper Flagg last night, what a start for him.

00:08You know, some people would say that's pedestrian, but really when you break it down 18, 7, 5,

00:15you had three steals, something like that.

00:17That's pretty heady stuff for a freshman at Cameron Indoor.

00:20I don't care who they're playing.

00:22Yeah, well, I wrote about him on Monday and, and talked to a lot of people who are scouts

00:29experts in the evaluation business.

00:31And they said, look, don't expect them to be going for 40 and 50 every night.

00:35It's not who he is.

00:36It's not say he can't or won't on occasion if he starts ripping threes and he can get

00:41going.

00:42On those occasions, he might get up some big points numbers, but it's not who he is.

00:46It's about the versatility and this Duke team needs that versatility because the one position

00:53where they're not really covered, where you really aren't sure their national championship

00:57good is point guard.

00:59So last night he comes out and he has five assists.

01:03Their nominal point guard has zero assists.

01:06So that tells you he does what is necessary to do to win.

01:10And that's what everybody I talked to, I spoke with Sharman White, who's the coach at Pace

01:15Academy in Georgia, but he also works with USA basketball with the under 17 national

01:20team.

01:21And he had Cooper when Cooper was 15 years old, Cooper came out at 15 and was the best

01:26player on the team in 2022 that won the gold medal at the under 17 World Cup.

01:33He is a phenomenal player.

01:34He's the best prospect in American basketball since Anthony Davis rolled through.

01:39And honestly, Scott, we need that.

01:41We haven't had the great guys come out of school in the early part of the 2000s.

01:47What we have, we had LeBron James in 03.

01:49We had Chris Paul.

01:51We had we had Kevin Durant come out.

01:54We had Greg Oden, although he got hurt and it didn't work out, but at least we had these

01:57great talents coming out.

02:00It's been a while since we had Anthony Davis.

02:03We had Zion come out in 2019, but he can't stay healthy.

02:07And that's pretty much it.

02:08So we need a guy like Cooper Flagg to come in, plant the flag and go out and have a great

02:14career.

02:15So, you know, I think he's an incredible player and I've seen him at every level.

02:21And I just think that, you know, you guys ranked him third in the Sporting News Top

02:2725.

02:28And like last year, I think you nailed two of those four in the final four.

02:33And I think this guy's that good that he's going to, I think he's going to carry him

02:38to the final four.

02:39I think they're going to play for a national championship.

02:41I think there's a great chance of that, Scott.

02:44People have become of the belief that you have to be old in order to win.

02:48No, you have to be good.

02:51And there's a lot of old teams that aren't good.

02:53And there aren't very many young teams in any case.

02:55And so I think that in Duke's case, with the freshmen that they have, that they can make

03:01the final four.

03:03That's where I stop and wonder, though.

03:06Like I said, there are certain ingredients that every championship team, going back as

03:11long as I've been covering this game, as you can see, it's a while.

03:15And you have to have certain ingredients.

03:19And one of them is a point guard who's really, it doesn't necessarily have to be a pro, but

03:25he's got to be significant.

03:26I mean, you had a DeJuan Harris in 2022.

03:29He's still at Kansas.

03:30That kind of player can win a national championship.

03:33Or you can have a legit pro guy, a first round NBA pick, which we've had.

03:40Let's go back to 2005, for an example, with Raymond Felton.

03:42You can have that guy, or you can have the DeJuan Harris.

03:45But can you have a guy where you're wondering?

03:47And that's what I wonder about with Duke.

03:49I think they can paper over that for a while with guys like Flagg, who can really pass

03:55the ball and are really unselfish, and so many weapons around them.

03:59But when you get to those final couple games, Scott, you got to have it all.

04:03And UConn had it all last year, and they were able to win it.

04:06They had enough the year before they were able to win it.

04:10But that's where I stop short with Duke, on whether they can win it because of that concern.

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