– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
Follow @Koiki_Sport Follow @ALOST_Official
NEWARK, NEW JERSEY — Never Nervous Pervis. Melo. The Unibrow. A number of freshmen who have seized the NCAA Tournament stage not only went on to great careers but also have had their names immortalized with enduring nicknames that invoke the very vivid memories of their star turns in the Big Dance.
Cooper Flagg is now halfway towards freshman-to-champion immortality, so we may need to get the nicknames ready to find one that will go down in NCAA Tournament lore.
Coop. Flagg Day. Whatever the college basketball wordsmiths come up with, there’s now the chance that sobriquet will be the title of the defining legacy of the next great freshman phenom, and Flagg’s performance in the shadows of New York City on Thursday night will be one of the games those lasting images of his impending greatness includes.
Flagg did everything and then some as the top-seeded Blue Devils took out No. 4 Arizona 100-93 in the East Regional semifinals inside the Prudential Center in Newark. The Blue Devils, who had dominated their competition in ACC play to the tune of an astounding plus-21.7 point differential, not only let a 19-point lead almost slip away, but allowed the most points in a game all season — and just the fourth time this campaign in which it allowed more than 78 points.
Reason to panic? Nope, not when Duke has a front-row seat to the latest episode of Hanging with Mr. Cooper. (OK, that name is already taken, I get it.)
Fitting his all-around game that will surely see him return to the NYC-area in a couple of months as the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA Draft, Flagg dropped 30 points with six rebounds, seven assists and three blocks, becoming the first man to post a 25-5-5 statline with three rejections since Marquette’s Dwyane Wade dropped a triple-double on Kentucky in the 2003 Elite Eight on the Golden Eagles’ way to the Final Four.
In that aforementioned Final Four 22 years ago, it was another legendary freshman, Carmelo Anthony, who cemented his legacy even before donning an NBA uniform, leading Syracuse to its lone national championship with a dizzying display of dominance that belied his age on the big stage. For the amount of comparisons that Flagg has received to great players of yesteryear, the most fitting at this stage includes Melo (especially given the pair’s limitless offensive game), Pervis Ellison, the freshman who led Louisville to the 1986 national championship, and Anthony Davis, who delivered Kentucky its most recent national championship in 2012 in his one year in Lexington.
*Editor’s note: Above the byline is the photo gallery from Thursday’s East Regional first semifinal, with photos taken by ALOST staff photographer Danny Suriel. After clicking on a photo to enlarge the picture, press the left and right arrow buttons on either side of the caption to scroll through the rest of the pictures that appear on the first page. Also, click on the numbers and/or arrow appearing immediately below the picture grid to load the next set of photos. There are 15 pictures in total.
Follow @Koiki_Sport Follow @ALOST_Official
