Cooper Flagg has left the building: the university career of Duke Superstar ends with a devastating collapse of the Final Four

San Antonio – There is a small room with a black leather chair in the bowels of the Alamodome where Cooper Flagg is for the next six minutes to the Duke to the media cloakroom for good. Until the cameras disappear, if only for a while, Flagg sit down and wait. Until the questions reused on a last game game have passed to put themselves aside for the night, Flagg sit down and wait.

Nothing can fix this pain, but a calm room far from the eyes of your eyes can help.

Flagg is not alone. His roommate Kon Knueppel is also there, but the pain is palpable. Flagg’s anxiety was apparent at the post-match press conference, a few moments after a Duke will collapse who will be one of the greatest strangulation jobs in the history of the illustrious of the Final Four.

Just or not, the Flagg clutch gene has just become the next subject of debate debate debate after his Fadeway Go-Ahead rider failed in the last 10 seconds of Loss of 70-67 Saturday in Houston.

“It was the coach of the play who developed,” said Flagg. “I took it in the painting. I thought I had my feet, I went up.

The last moment of the phenomenal first year of Flagg’s season will be that it is hidden in a room with an “only authorized personal” panel stuck at the door. It seems cruel and ruthless one night when a coronation felt imminent. A few hours earlier, Flagg won the prestigious wooden price, given to the best player in university basketball. For 39 minutes, it was just that.

Flagg scored 27 points, seven rebounds, four assists, three blocks and two interceptions. He became the first player to have managed his team in points, rebounds, assists, stolen and blocks in a final match of four since the defensive statistics became official in 1986. His right trey and his huge swat in a period of 46 seconds felt like the next big moment of Mars of Flagg and a new unavoidable of a brilliant moment.

Then Duke wasted what was left of his advance – six points – with 34 seconds to do. Houston, an adorable cockroach, simply refused to die. Duke helped him in his cause.

• Flagg and Sion James – Impeccable defenders, both – broke out a switch at the wrong time to release Emanuel Sharp for an important 3 points with 33 seconds to play to reduce Duke’s advance to only three.
• The dubious excessive fault of Flagg gave John Roberts to Jewan Roberts to link and give Houston an advance of 68-67 with a pair of cold stone throws.
• Tyrese Proctor missed (another) the front-end of one and one in the last minute of a match.
• Duke’s offensive, which ranked n ° 1 in the effectiveness of Half Court entering tonight, had only one basket in the last 10 minutes of regulation. A!

All this necessary context will be lost while hot artists develop the replica “Flagg not clutch”. You know it’s in preparation.

“I’m sure there is much more than I could have done to help our guys at the end,” said Duke coach Jon Scheyer. “This is the thing that kills me the most. The number of game situations that we watched this year. We did not have the real experience all the time, but it is something that I really felt that we are preparing. So I have the impression of dropping our guys in this regard.”

In a way, it was appropriate that a sixth year senior beat the first year feeling on the biggest scene in sport. Captain Jewan Roberts de Houston was up to the challenge with many stops against Flagg in terms of closing, including on the second year of Duke regulation. Inside the group, Kelvin Sampson and everyone in the crowd of 68,252 members, knew where the ball was going. Sampson also knew who he wanted to keep it, and it was not Jojo Tugler, the defensive player of the year Big 12.

“I was there for that; I was not running it,” said Roberts, like a boxer after leaving the ring. “I have the impression that it happened in his place, but I had an excellent competition to modify his shot and it was short. I confided at that time. I did not want help or waterfalls. I just wanted to keep it and live with the result.”

The end is always ruthless, but This end This The moment can be difficult to recover. Flagg did not admit it on Saturday, but he will remain in his mind forever. He has many incredible opportunities that change life in front of him. But he will never have that chance again.

“Of course, it hurts,” said James, Duke’s main leader, in the middle of a devastated and calm Duke wardrobe. “He wanted to do it as we all wanted. Cooper is the best player in the country. He knows, we know it. But of course, it hurts. I just wanted to take it. It’s just incomplete. We wanted to bring (championship) n ° 6. We were at a game.”

Just in the corridor, Houston’s deputy coach, Kellen Sampson, could not remove the smile after the cougars took the best flagg and sort of escaped to face the Florida during the Monday national championship match.

“He’s great, guy,” said Sampson. “It’s a nightmare match for everyone. The first half? He separated us with his death. I don’t have enough superlatives for him. It is a monster match problem. It took a guy who was with us six years and is long, athletic and on this subject to set out. And he had another 25 or anything.”

Flagg’s long -term future is still so sunny. He put an arc on one of the best individual seasons in the history of university basketball by breaking records on the left and right. He will descend as one of the first-year students of all time that university basketball has ever absent, and he was responsible for being the n ° 1 choice of the NBA 2025 draft.

But the next hours will be anything but a ray of sunshine. The door opens and flaggs climb into a golf cart that throws itself in the corridor to book for a semblance of solitude which will be impossible to find.

Flagg’s university career is over.