Why unselfish play, Cooper Flagg in particular, has No. 4 Duke playing better offense

Steve Wiseman, The News & Observer on Jan 2, 2025

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DURHAM, N.C. — No. 4 Duke closed the pre-Christmas portion of its basketball schedule with its best shooting performance and returned to play 10 days later on Tuesday with another solid outing on offense.

The Blue Devils (11-2, 3-0 ACC) have now won seven consecutive games and, of late, are figuring out how to accomplish success in different ways.

Oh Duke is still among the nation's finest defensive teams. Just ask Virginia Tech coach Mike Young, who saw his team find a way to shoot 46% and still lost 88-65 to the Blue Devils on Tuesday night at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

"This is the best defensive team I have seen in my six years in the league," Young said. "They can really disrupt you with their length and with the ability to switch everything."

The defense, No. 2 nationally in defensive efficiency per KenPom.com, will keep Duke in every game it plays.

The burgeoning offense, though, is something that could carry the Blue Devils as far as they hope to go this season.

That pre-Christmas game, an 82-56 win at Georgia Tech on Dec. 21, saw Duke shoot 56.4%, its best shooting day of the season.

The players scattered to celebrate the holidays before reconvening in Durham to begin prepping for Tuesday's game with Virginia Tech. They obviously didn't lose their shooting touch during their travels.

Against the Hokies, Duke shot 66.7% in the second half to turn its 10-point halftime lead into a one-sided margin. The Blue Devils shot 53.4% for the day, marking the first time this season they've hit more than half their shots in consecutive games.

"I thought it was another step forward for us," Duke coach Jon Scheyer said. "I think we've refined our offense, where some of the actions we run, I think, really fit our personnel. So that's one thing. But then two, a lot of it's making the reads and adjusting to how people are playing you and even the way that we drive."

To be sure, this wasn't an example of Duke getting hot with 3-pointers or simple jump shots against Virginia Tech. Duke hit 11 of 29 3-pointers, for a healthy 37.9% but the Blue Devils have had four other games where they shot 40% or better on 3-pointers. Instead, Scheyer and his players liked how they passed the ball, allowing them to score 38 of their 88 points in the paint. Duke finished with 10 layups and six dunks.

Cooper Flagg led Duke with 24 points as the Blue Devils saw six players score 10 points or more. The 6-9 freshman phenom also led his team with six assists, showing how his all-around game continues to develop less than two weeks after his 18th birthday.

"I think that's something that we've kind of stressed and made a big part of our team is playing the right way," Flagg said. "When you have so much talent like we do, it's a disservice to your team and everybody on it if you don't play the right way and just make the right read."

For all the accolades that come Flagg's way, what with NBA teams eager to make him the No. 1 pick in next summer's draft and his standing as a preseason all-American, Scheyer has seen enough over the first two months of the season to say Flagg deserves more praise.

His statistics against Virginia Tech, from scoring to passing to his team-leading four steals, speak volumes.

"I know we praise Cooper a lot," Scheyer said. "He deserves it. But what he does for our team is incredible. So I think that's a big part of our offense too. The fact that you have a guy that gets 24 and six (assists) and doesn't force anything. He's on a 2-on-1 one break and not thinking about numbers, and he's going to dump it off to Tyrese (Proctor) for a dunk. You know, that's pretty unique."

Young noticed that play in addition to a first-half sequence before the score got out of hand. Flagg passed up an open 3-pointer at the wing to zip the ball to the corner, where freshman Isaiah Evans already had his feet set behind the 3-point line. Evans drilled the wide-open shot to put Duke up 28-18.

"The lesser player would shoot that because it was there," Young said. "The great player makes the right basketball play."

Of late, the Blue Devils are making the right basketball play more often than not. Their stingy defense is about toughness and guile, length and athleticism. Their offense is about togetherness and unselfish play.

It's becoming a lethal combination for the rest of college basketball.

"I think we just have so much talent on this team," Flagg said. "That is such an advantage to us, that we can run so many different things for so many different guys. It's hard to scout and hard for everybody to be locked in. You can always find a mismatch, find something to exploit. So we just play that to our advantage a lot."

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