Duke’s Flagg gets top AP honor

ALEX SLITZ/GETTY Images

Cooper Flagg enters the Final Four leading 

Duke in scoring, rebounding, assists, and steals.

5 Apr 2025 - The Boston Globe

By Aaron Beard

ASSOCIATED PRESS

SAN ANTONIO — Cooper Flagg and his Duke teammates were days away from clinching a spot in the Final Four, and the Blue Devils’ freshman star was planning ahead.

It wasn’t about anything on the court, though. It was to be ready the next time teammates Khaman maluach and Patrick ngongba broke out water guns at the cold tubs.

“I’m definitely ordering one as well,” Flagg said with a grin, a nod to the fact that he’s still “just being a kid.”

Maybe so, but the the 18year-old’s game has been far more advanced than his age from the opening tip of his college debut. scoring. Rebounding. setting up teammates as a playmaker, then aiding them as a defender. he did it all amid high expectations as the potential no. 1 overall NBA draft prospect, the driving force with a relentless competitive edge and mature focus for a team now two wins from a national championship. It is why Flagg was named the Associated Press men’s college basketball national player of the year on Friday, becoming only the fourth freshman to win the award in its 64-year history.

The 6-foot-9-inch, 205-pound forward from Newport, Maine, won a two-man race with Auburn star Johni Broome. Both players were unanimous firstteam AP All-americans with teams at the Final Four, and they were the only two to receive player-of-the-year votes, Flagging 41 of the 61.

Flagg joins Duke’s zion Williamson (2019), Kentucky’s Anthony Davis (2012), and Texas star Kevin Durant (2007) as freshman winners. Each went either no. 1 or no. 2 overall in the NBA draft a few months later.

“He plays so hard, he’s competitive, a great teammate,” Duke coach Jon scheyer said after the home finale, “and obviously his ability is special.”

Flagg was 17 when he arrived at Duke after reclassifying to graduate early from high school.

Yet he has exceeded all hype as the nation’s top-ranked recruit, with Flagg leading Duke in scoring (18.9 points per game), rebounding (7.5), assists (4.2), and steals (1.4) while ranking second in blocks (1.3) entering saturday’s national semifinal against houston.

“I hold myself to a high standard, high expectations,” Flagg told the AP. “Just because I know how much work I’ve put in and how many hours I’ve spent grinding and putting that work in. It’s those expectations of just trusting what you do and just doing it to the highest level.”

And he repeatedly did that. he scored an Atlantic coast conference freshman-record 42 points against notre Dame. There was his highlight-reel transition dunk against Pittsburgh. The big game to help the Blue Devils beat Broome’s Tigers, along with going for 30 points in an ncaa sweet 16 win against Arizona that scheyer called “one of the best tournament performances I’ve ever coached or been a part of.”

***

Three to become head coaches

Assistants doing double duty

5 Apr 2025 - The Boston Globe

By Aaron Beard

ASSOCIATED PRESS

SAN ANTONIO — Florida assistant coaches John Andrzejek and Kevin Hovde are racking up the hours before the Final Four. so is Houston assistant Quannas White ahead of saturday’s national semifinals at the Alamodome.

Yet all three are doing more than fine-tuning scouting reports or breaking down video of their opponents. There’s also work — fit carefully into an already-stuffed schedule — to get started on running their own programs.

Andrzejek is headed to campbell, hovde to columbia, and White to Louisiana-Lafayette in hirings that have already been announced. That means taking calls to interview staff or talk to recruits while riding out the rest of their current teams’ title pushes, including taking the practice court in the Alamodome on Friday ahead of the Florida-auburn and houstonduke semifinals on saturday.

“I didn’t second-guess this at all,” White said. “There was no thought in my mind that said now that you’ve become a head coach, you need to get down there immediately. This is a family to me and families stick together and see things through.”

The programs where they’ve spent multiple seasons are two wins from winning a national championship, which would be the first for Florida since the 2006 and 2007 repeat, and the first ever for Houston — the program best known for the “Phi Slama Jama” glory days of the 1980s that twice brought the program to the title game. There’s the emotional pull to stay with their teams to the end, bitter or glorious.

The thrill of this week’s Final Four conflicts with a key time for the programs the coaches are taking over.

The transfer portal is open, with players already jumping in to move on from their current schools. so it’s a fertile time for coaches looking to reshape rosters for next season, meaning any time away from those new programs is time lost.

Another team in the Final Four, Duke, had a staffer face that same conundrum.

Jai Lucas left the Blue Devils after the regular-season finale at North Carolina to take over at Miami.

That’s meant the Blue Devils having to shuffle responsibilities, with assistant Emanuel Dildy noting that coach Jon Scheyer — who called the timing “not ideal” — has been diving even more into some of the scouting work.

For the holdovers still with their teams in San Antonio, there’s a bit more room to wait by going to a mid-major that can only benefit from the promotion that will come with saturday’s games and maybe a trip to the title game monday night.

“The further we go, the better our sales pitch gets, the better our brand is for campbell,” Andrzejek said.

“I think kids are already really excited to play for a coach who has coached in the Final Four. And I know they’d be even more excited to play for a coach who’s a national champion.”

White, 44, is the only one of the three who has already had an introductory news conference at his new school. he’s taking over a sun Belt program that reached march madness just two years ago.

The 32-year-old Andrzejek and the 36-year-old hovde will be introduced next week. Andrzejek is taking over a coastal Athletic Association program in north carolina with a single NCAA Tournament bid in its history (1992).

Hovde, 36, is taking over the new York city-based Ivy League program with three ncaa bids but none since 1968.

The key for Andrzejek, hovde and White has been simple: adaptability.

“I just spent a lot of time on the phone, to be honest,” said hovde, who at least has two assistant coaches in the hiring process at Columbia.

Hovde jumped at the chance after the gators beat two-time reigning national champion UConn in the second round of the NCAA Tournament to catch a flight for a daylong visit to columbia.

He had individual meetings with current players to build rapport with them, then rejoined Florida ahead of its trip to san Francisco for West Region games.

“They’re awesome,” hovde said of the columbia players. “They’re Florida gator fans now, text me after every game.”

Andrzejek hasn’t been able to do official visits because he’s otherwise been with the gators in gainesville. he’s hired Landry Kosmalski, a former coach at Division 3 swarthmore, to give him another set of hands in Buies creek.

“I won’t lie to you: it’s a lot of nights going on four hours’ sleep, trying to do both,” Andrzejek said.

“It’s not neatly compartmentalized. It’d be nice to say, ‘All right, from 9 to 4, I work on Florida. From 4 to 10, I work on campbell.’ It doesn’t really work that way.”

As for White, he has hired three assistants and even managed to sneak away for a quick visit to Louisiana for recruiting this week.

“Had a kid on a visit who committed, thank god,” White said.

“So right after the visit was over, I flew back [Wednesday], got with the team, practiced, and drove up here and started preparing.” still, his work with the cougars takes priority for a few more days, at least.

“Even when I was down at Lafayette,” White said, “I was watching film on Duke.”