What was Cooper Flagg’s best moment from the Sweet 16 win against Arizona?
Was it his halftime buzzer-beating deep triple? His no-look pass to a wide open Sion James in the corner? The perfect lob he threw to Khaman Maluach while he himself almost trips? The tough twos, the layups through contact. Or perhaps it was that, with both centers and Kon Knueppel in foul trouble, Flagg only picked up his second foul with 3:22 remaining when Carter Bryant dribbled the ball off his own foot.
No matter what the Blue Devil faithful said about officiating, it does not change the fact that Duke played the final 6:46 with two players on the court with four fouls. When Patrick Ngongba II fouled out at the 5:50 mark, Maluach had to ride out the rest of the game. While Maliq Brown was active and did play four minutes in the first half, his return in the second did not seem like a possibility. If Maluach picked up his fifth, the Blue Devils would have been without a true big.
“I realized the team needed me most,” Maluach said. “I had to stay on the court for my team to be able to have rim protection. But down the stretch, when I had four fouls, I didn't want to be too aggressive or pick up a stupid fifth foul.”
Knueppel dealt with the same defensive dilemma.
“It's really, really hard to play with four,” Knueppel said. “You feel like you're not playing great defense, because you don't want to get that fifth foul and come out. So you feel like you're letting guys down a little bit.”
Neither picked up their fifth, and though Duke made its last field goal at 4:16, Knueppel added six from the charity stripe after that. The defense, “piss poor” in Knueppel’s own words, was just enough to hold on to an (at least) five-point lead. The call on Flagg was Duke’s only foul after Ngongba’s exit.
“If they get beat, we're gonna have their back.” Tyrese Proctor said of his teammates in foul trouble.
Foul trouble has been a recurring issue all year. Against Clemson, the Blue Devils’ lone ACC loss, Knueppel, James and Maluach all entered the second half with two calls. Maluach and James each had their third within four minutes, and Maluach had five with 1:15 left to play and a two-point deficit. In the regular-season finale at North Carolina, Flagg picked up three in the first half, despite only playing nine minutes. He sat for more than seven minutes after the second, but did come back in. Two minutes later, he was called for a charge.
“I'm always going to play him,” Scheyer said of the decision to put Flagg back in.
“You worry about him playing really hesitant and not being himself, even with three fouls. And so I just told him to be aggressive,” Scheyer said. “And for him to get four blocks, you know, while having the three fouls and doing a great job showing his hands was big time.”
Thursday night, that was Maluach, blocking a 3-point attempt by Caleb Love that was eerily similar to the one he made as a Tar Heel in the last minute of the Final Four over Mark Williams. Instead of a one-possession game and roaring Arizona crowd, the Blue Devils remained in (relative) control. Unlike against Clemson, Maluach made it to the end.
Despite the close start and the difficult end-of-game situation, Duke’s freshmen and veterans alike stayed calm and collected. Even ending cold from the field, the Blue Devils got stops against a rolling offense and found ways to eek out an advantage. Just as Knueppel and Proctor stepped up in the first half of that March 8 game against North Carolina, Flagg settled into his groove in the second, never picking up another foul. Ngongba stepped into a rotation role with Brown injured and became perhaps the team’s most physical player.
“We've built up an entire season of trust and teaching,” Scheyer said. “Really, everything we've done from the offseason, from April 1 to now, has led to be mentally tough, physically tough and together for these moments.”
“They're not afraid … I have a bunch of guys, man, they're killers, they're fearless and they sure weren't afraid of this moment,” Scheyer said.
The game didn’t end until well after midnight. Alabama, Duke’s Elite Eight opponent had clinched its spot hours earlier with a record-breaking shooting night with 25 3-pointers and 113 points. Facing that lethal of an offense, discipline will be everything. If the Crimson Tide attempt 30 triples and are put on the line, the Blue Devils will need lights-out shooting of their own to match the blistering pace. But if Duke’s seventh-ranked scoring defense plays, well, “piss poor,” it might be ending its Final Four hopes prematurely.
The tip for the East Region final is Saturday at 8:49 p.m.
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Rachael Kaplan is a Trinity senior and a senior editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.