Duke basketball is one of the most successful programs in college history. It also is one of the most hated.
So as people rightfully laud freshman Cooper Flagg for his many accomplishments thus far as a Blue Devil, that conversation should include yet another feat — the way Flagg has turned some longtime Duke foes into fans. At least for now.
This Flagg-inspired evolution has been particularly acute in Maine, where many basketball fans can’t help but root for the Newport native and his Duke team. Even some diehard fans of Duke rival North Carolina have put their long-held allegiances aside and embraced the Cooper Flagg magic.
Take Brandon McCarthy, who has been a North Carolina Tar Heels fan for decades.
“I did hate Duke,” McCarthy said. “And as soon as Cooper leaves, I’ll go back to hating Duke,” McCarthy said Thursday.
McCarthy’s North Carolina fandom dates back to an early 1990s national championship, when he was around 9 years old. And even with that deep-seated history, he can’t help but appreciate the “once in a lifetime thing that we’re all living through” by watching Flagg.
“This year, I want Cooper to win every individual award he can, and I hope the Dukies cut down the nets,” McCarthy said. “I hope it’s a storybook thing for him.”
That’s something that McCarthy couldn’t have imagined himself saying a few years ago.
“I really didn’t want him to go to Duke. But as soon as he did — he means so much to Maine basketball that, wherever he goes in the NBA, I’ll become an NBA fan of that team.”
And for the record, McCarthy knows a thing or two about Maine basketball. He was a Bangor Daily News all-tournament high school MVP in the early 2000s, and more recently was an assistant coach for the Southern Aroostook girls high school basketball team that had a dominant run with several state championships in recent years.
“Even people that still really don’t root for Duke, you have to root for Cooper. He’s done such a good job taking care of Maine and not forgetting his roots,” McCarthy said. “We all feel like we kind of owe him the same respect.”
Jay Neal of Hampden is another North Carolina fan who finds himself in a complicated situation.
“Well, I’m still rooting for Carolina. I’m rooting for Cooper but I’m cheering against Duke, if that makes any sense,” Neal explained. “I would love nothing more than to see the local kid do really well. If he wins the championship, that is just so exciting for the state of Maine.”
And that’s a lot, coming from someone who has been a North Carolina fan since the early 80s.
Neal actually played basketball with Flagg’s father, Ralph, at Eastern Maine Community College. He said he and his old teammate have been exchanging some texts throughout the year.
“But, obviously my loyalty comes to Carolina, and when Carolina and Duke play each other, I cheer for Carolina but I root for Cooper,” Neal continued.
Presented with a hypothetical scenario where North Carolina and Duke meet in the NCAA championship game, and Carolina wins but Flagg scores something like 30 points, Neal called that the “best-case scenario” for him.
But just this once, he’d also be OK if a Duke player won it all.
“If Cooper wins, how great is that?” Neal continued. “It’s just great for the state of Maine.”
He also said this would be “absolutely the only time I would say that” about a Duke player.
Neal is excited to have someone from Maine feature so prominently in the NCAA tournament, and also looks forward to a time when he doesn’t have to watch every Duke game.
“I said the other night, ‘Oh my god, just a few more games and I don’t have to watch these guys every night,’” Neal said. “I try not to miss a game that Cooper has played in. It will be nice to say, ‘Well Duke’s on tonight, I don’t care.”
The conflicting moments have added up for McCarthy as well.
“It’s tough man, sitting there. Even watching the Duke and Carolina games, it’s tough,” McCarthy said. “I have a Cooper Flagg T-shirt. I’ve had to break down, buy it. At first it would be like a gag joke or lose-a-bet kind of thing to get a Cooper Flagg Duke shirt. But I couldn’t wait to get it this year.”
Not only did the Carolina fan travel down to Boston to watch Duke play Boston College earlier in the season, but he did so “all decked out in Duke gear.”
What a difference a year, and a generational player, can make. But McCarthy doesn’t expect it to last long.
“I’ll be off the Duke bandwagon in just a second,” he added.
And he’s not alone. Zach Leal, who manages the Somerset Pour House just over the town line from where Flagg grew up in Nokomis, has put his North Carolina fandom on hold to cheer on Flagg this year.
“It’s really hard to root against somebody when you have local ties to it,” said Leal, who went to Nokomis Regional High School, where Flagg and his brothers Ace and Hunter helped win a Maine state championship a few years ago. He knows the Flagg family and has been a North Carolina fan since Vince Carter played there in the ’90s.
But what Flagg is doing on the court and for the local community transcends that North Carolina-Duke rivalry.
“It makes me want to kind of put it to rest just for the year, and go back to being a diehard Carolina fan next year,” Leal said, crediting Flagg for expanding local interest in college basketball. “It’s just extremely exciting to be able to watch him perform and bring a whole other level of eyes to college basketball, because that really is what it has done this year.”
