Cooper Flagg continues to be the favorite to win this year’s John R. Wooden Award, an honor earned by the most outstanding player in college basketball. And there should be little doubt why.
After already starting the week as the odds-on favorite in the sports betting world to win the award, Flagg added a 27-point performance for Duke on Wednesday night against California. He is now averaging 19.8 points, 7.6 rebounds, four assists, 1.6 steals and 1.2 blocks per game.
He leads the No. 3 Blue Devils in each of those categories (tied for the team lead in steals), continuing an impressive statistical feat that hasn’t been accomplished in the Atlantic Coast Conference for 25 years. Flagg also leads Duke in minutes played.
Flagg was officially named one of the 20 men’s players on the Wooden Award’s late midseason watchlist on Tuesday. He and Auburn’s Johni Broome are widely considered the two frontrunners at this point in the season.
The Wooden Award player of the year is selected by a group of nearly 1,000 college basketball experts from around the country. The top five voter-getters are invited to Los Angeles after the NCAA tournament for the final award ceremony.
If Flagg were to win the Wooden Award, the 18-year-old freshman from Newport would be the youngest ever to do so. Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, now playing for the WNBA’s Indiana Fever, won the women’s award last year. Purdue’s Zach Edey, now in the NBA with the Memphis Grizzlies, won the men’s award the previous two years.
Like the emphatic reverse dunk Flagg delivered in the second half Wednesday night, his performance in that game was yet another powerful statement in what has been a breakaway year for the freshman phenom.
Flagg also had five rebounds, three assists and three steals Wednesday night for the Blue Devils, who turned the page on a tough away loss to Clemson last weekend and extended their home winning streak to 14. They are now 21-3 overall and lead the ACC with a 13-1 record in conference play.
“I never say a loss is a good thing but we definitely learned a lot of things from it,” Flagg said about responding to the Clemson game, according to USA Today. “Going forward, we’ll have that experience. Collectively, as a group, we haven’t had a ton of those experiences of being in late-game situations, so that’s a big experience for us and we’ll definitely learn from it going forward.”
Duke coach Jon Scheyer called Wednesday’s win a good response. He said Flagg’s performance was “sharp, under control, competitive, aggressive,” according to USA Today.
“He really carried us throughout with his play.” Scheyer said.
