Inside the mind of Duke’s Cooper Flagg: ‘He wants to destroy his competition’

NEWARK, N.J. — Kelly Flagg remembers the scene like it was yesterday.

Her twin boys, Cooper and Ace, were playing the popular video game, “Just Dance” on the Nintendo Wii at the age of four. They were dancing to the song “The Ants Go Marching” and after Cooper won the first game, Ace hugged his brother and let him know how proud he was of him.

“It was such a vivid memory for me,” Kelly said. “Cooper and Ace were so competitive playing the game.”

When the next song came on, it was Ace who won, but the reception from his brother was quite different, as Cooper proceeded to cross his arms, turn away, and, according to Kelly, was “very mad.”

Kelly proceeded to teach her son the lesson of being a classy winner, and that’s when it hit her that she had a very different type of kid in her family room. 

“That competitive drive comes from within,” Kelly said of Cooper. “He won’t accept any other way than being the best at whatever it is he’s doing. It doesn’t matter what it is. It could be baseball, football, soccer – heck, even cornhole! He makes everything a competition. Everything that we try to do, he wants to win, and he wants to destroy his competition.”

The son of Ralph, a former basketball player at Eastern Maine Community College, and Kelly, who was a part of four NCAA Tournament teams during her time at the University of Maine, Cooper’s work ethic and drive originate from his family’s deep basketball roots. 

Kelly, who spent time coaching her sons with their Maine United AAU program, knows when to play the motherly role with her two boys, but she also makes it a point to always be honest with them, which is due to understanding their desires in life.

“I’m a realist. I’ve never, ever sugarcoated anything,” Kelly said. “I give props to them when they’re deserving and congratulate them on jobs well done. But if I didn’t think they played well, I’m not one to say ‘nice job’ or anything like that. That’s not me. And I think it’s a benefit to them that I’ve been honest.”

Cooper craves honest feedback, and Kelly makes sure to give him just that, especially when it comes to critiquing him on things that are effort-related.

“When he passes the ball and I see him standing around and watching instead of moving and cutting to the basket, or when he doesn’t crash the glass on a shot, those are things I am critical of him on,” Kelly said of Cooper. “More than anything, it’s free throws. That really eats at me. There’s no excuse for missing a free throw. I don’t care. It’s free for a reason. He’s shot a million of them so he should never miss any.” 

Yes, the competitive edge is in the genes. 

It’s what led Cooper to play at the fifth and sixth grade level as a third-grader. By the time he reached the fifth grade, he was playing at the seventh and eighth grade level. By the time he got to seventh grade, he was dunking a basketball. 

**** **** ****

The lasting image of Flagg for Matt Cohen, who served as an assistant coach at Montverde Academy, came back in December 2023. It was a time of year when most people are in the holiday spirit, but 17-year-old Cooper Flagg was anything but that.

Sitting in the lobby of a Fort Meyers hotel, Flagg was approached by Paul VI standout Patrick Ngongba, who was set to be a future teammate of Flagg’s at Duke.

“Cooper wouldn’t even speak to him before the game or at the hotel,” Cohen recalled. “Pat was confused. He was saying to his parents, ‘Why isn’t Cooper talking to me?'”

When asked by the Montverde coaching staff why Flagg was ignoring a future college teammate in Durham, Flagg didn’t hold back with his response.

“Yeah, we may be teammates next year, but right now, that’s my enemy,” Flagg told the coaches. 

“This guy, he’s so competitive that he wouldn’t even look in Pat’s direction because even though he was going to be friends and teammates with him at Duke, he could not be friendly with him then,” Cohen said. “It speaks to the competitor he is.” 

Flagg and Montverde Academy finished 33-0 on the season, winning a national championship after Kevin Boyle constructed a roster including NCAA Tournament hero and Maryland star Derik Queen, UConn star Liam McNeeley, Baylor’s Robert Wright, Georgia’s Asa Newell and more.

Cohen credits Flagg’s competitive nature for Montverde’s success, pointing to a game last February against Long Island Lutheran, which featured current Baylor freshman star V.J. Edgecombe.

“The game starts and Cooper is talking the most trash that I’ve ever seen him talk,” Cohen said. “He’s saying ‘you’re not like this or that.’ There are videos going viral on his performance. He had a total killer mentality, and we blew them out by 32.”

But what happened next is something Cohen admits he will never forget.

“We walked out of the locker room, and we can’t even get out because the entire hallway is filled with little kids looking for Cooper and screaming his name. They all wanted his autograph,” Cohen recalled. “For Cooper to be talking trash and dominating a game with this vicious mentality to walking out and giving every kid his time, it says it all about who he is. 

“His face lights up when he sees kids who are admiring him because I truly believe it’s his goal to be a role model. He really cherishes his young fans. He knows coming from how much he loves the Celtics and how much he grew up idolizing those teams, he wants to pay it forward to the next generation.” 

This is Flagg: the best player to ever come out of the state of Maine, raised by two parents who preach blue-collar values and keep him measured by how much they push him, and a guy who, more than anything, wants to win. 

**** **** ****

Flagg was in the fourth grade when Andy Bedard first laid eyes on him. A member of the University of Maine Sports Hall of Fame, Bedard starred for the Black Bears from 1998-2000 following a two-year run at Boston College. His son, Kaden, was playing in a youth basketball league alongside Flagg, and that’s what ultimately led to Bedard starting the Maine United AAU program. 

To make Flagg’s desire of playing AAU basketball a reality, Kelly would drive Cooper, Ace and their best grade school friend 90 minutes from Newport to Portland for practice, which took place 2-3 times per week for four years.

“We would stop at Pizza Hut and grab a box of pizza,” Kelly said. “They’d eat on the way down and sleep all the way back. So, I’d get to Portland at about 4:30, practice until 6:30 or 7, and return home by 8:30 or 9 o’clock. This is when they were 10 years old, so these were late nights. But that’s where the work began.” 

Kelly trusted Bedard, who she went to college with, because of the type of player he was. She knew he was the right person to push her son beyond what he was comfortable doing.

“We knew Andy would work on new skills because Andy’s vision was not for him to just be stuck inside on the block, but to work on ball handling and shot-creating skills with the guards,” Kelly said. “That was so critical and good for his development at such a young age.” 

When Bedard made the decision to increase the level of competition in the AAU ranks, he wasn’t certain if the greatness he saw in Flagg would translate against some of the top programs across the nation. But he’ll never forget the first time he saw Flagg go up against elite-level competition, something that looked to be straight out of a Hollywood movie script. 

“The first game of MADE Hoops was pretty special,” said Bedard, who was referring to the premier EYBL middle school hoops league in the country. “This is when Cooper and my son were in seventh grade, and we didn’t really look the part. We looked three or four years younger than anybody else. … There was some talk about him [Flagg] being pretty good, but we proceeded to steamroll the tournament. Not only was he beating teams, he was beating them bad. Opponents tried box-and-one, triangle-and-two, and I even saw a line-and-three on him. There was nothing anybody could do.”

The rise of Flagg continued into high school, where he starred at Montverde Academy and on the AAU circuit. Bedard recalled playing in Peach Jam during Flagg’s junior year, and Maine United was going up against Drive Nation in the opening round of a tournament.

“I told him what we absolutely needed him to do: score!” Bedard said. “The kid goes out on the court and gets 52 points on 15-of-17 from the floor. Now, him getting 52, this kid was just as happy scoring 12 and winning the game for Montverde as he was scoring 52. It’s hard to define because he’s such a unique breed and a blessing in our game, one the game needs.” 

**** **** ****

Fast-forward to the present day, where Flagg is in the midst of a historic freshman season at Duke as his Blue Devils are set to battle Arizona in a Sweet 16 showdown at 9:39 p.m. ET Thursday in Newark, New Jersey. The 6-foot-9 forward is averaging 18.7 points, 7.5 rebounds and 4.2 assists per game while shooting 49% from the floor. The evolution of his perimeter game combined with his otherworldly defensive instincts locks him into the No. 1 spot in this June’s NBA Draft. 

The Blue Devils are the odds-on favorite to win it all as Jon Scheyer has built a team that goes beyond just Flagg. Junior guard Tyrese Proctor is playing the best basketball of his career with 19 made triples in the last three games. Kon Knueppel is a next-level shooter who has the same competitive DNA as Flagg. Khaman Maluach is an NBA Academy product who makes an invaluable impact defensively, while Sion James and Mason Gillis provide a seasoned presence needed in a locker room featuring several marquee freshmen. 

Flagg can go out and get 30 points on any given night, but that’s not his priority.

“If I know I’m matched up against somebody, or I have to play them the next day, I have to be locked in and have no friends on the court,” Flagg said when told about the exchange he shared with Ngongba last year during the City of Palms Classic. 

The 18-year-old freshman phenom is unapologetically himself. He’s smart. And while Duke fans continue to hold out hope of him returning for his sophomore season, Flagg knows what’s in store for him this June in Brooklyn. 

“Cooper is about to move on with something incredibly special with the next step he’s going to go after this,” Scheyer said. 

But that’s not what Flagg is focused on right now, and Kelly knows that better than anybody because, just like the “Just Dance“ competition on Nintendo Wii at the age of four, Cooper is only wired to stare at the next challenge ahead of him: Caleb Love and Arizona. 

“Right now, the only thing that he cares about is winning the national championship,” Kelly said. “He’s hyper-focused on what’s ahead of him in this moment. He’s living in the moment with this team. He’s all-in, and that’s all that matters to him. 

“He wants to win so badly, and until he raises that national championship trophy, nothing else matters.” 

John Fanta is a national college basketball broadcaster and writer for FOX Sports. He covers the sport in a variety of capacities, from calling games on FS1 to serving as lead host on the BIG EAST Digital Network to providing commentary on The Field of 68 Media Network. Follow him at @John_Fanta.

Want great stories delivered right to your inbox? Create or log in to your FOX Sports account, follow leagues, teams and players to receive a personalized newsletter daily.

 

---

---