Newark, NJ – What a spectacle this city took on Thursday evening, a pair of regional -seminal rarities that stimulated the WOW postman of a 2025 support belonging to the big boys.
In the absence of Cinderella, give us the sparkling.
In the beginning, the Alabama put One of the best offensive outings This glorious NCAA tournament has never stagedWith 25 3 points out of 51 attempts and 113 points against Byu. The sung nets took even more heat in the last glass: Duke VS Arizona. Cooper Flagg and Caleb Love. The match meant that Flagg (a first -year student) or love (a fifth year senior) would leave the soil for the last time as a college player.
The only thing we really want about this tournament is that players and teams meet. Flagg and Love did precisely that inside the prudential center, combining 65 points on 50% shooting (20 for 40 on the field) and 50% of 3 (8 for 16) to give us one of the best performances with two players on the opposite sides of a NCAA – NEVER tournament game.
The seeded n ° 1 Duke passed his way in front of Arizona, a seeded, with a 100-93 victory. Flagg and his teammates can play for the Final Four on Saturday evening against Alabama.
By taking into account the scene and the circumstances, Flagg had the best match of his career: 30 points, seven assists, six rebounds, three blocks. The 18 -year -old is a mortal to be the n ° 1 choice of the June NBA draft; The litany of the reasons why this is true was exposed dozens of times Thursday evening. Flagg is the most complete player in university basketball, and each facet of his game has seen the opportunity to emerge against Arizona. Questions about his shooting prowess in November and December have completely dissipated; He sank three 3 out of five attempts and had nine goals on the ground in nine variations in the form of rating.
Perhaps the biggest flagg shot was a hurry 3 in the NBA range, which he hoisted just before the first half horn was sounded. He cashed, turning what was almost a match equally 10 seconds before in a six-point Duke advantage (48-42) in the event of a break. Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd later told me that this sequence was essential to the final result.
“We couldn’t solve the puzzle,” Lloyd told CBS Sports. “We couldn’t keep him in front of us. This is the thing. I don’t think people do how thorny he is with the ball, and he just continued to descend again and again.”
The first -year phenomenon pushed Duke in its first 100 -point game from the tournament since 1993. Scan The Archives and it is statistically obvious: Thursday evening from Flagg to Jersey was the best game of any first -year student in the history of the NCAA tournament. No first -year player had ever scored at least 30 points, had at least five rebounds, five assists and three blocks on a scene of madness in March. The last player, period, to do so in this event was Dwyane Wade Marquette in 2003 against Kentucky in the elite eight.
Flagg is fascinating because his basketball match is so advanced, but he is unable to explain correctly how good he has good at 18. When he was asked to define how he put on one of the best performances of the NCAA tournament, Flagg quickly joked: “Play with very good energy, trusting our match plan, trusting my teammates. They put me in very good places tonight. The coach, too, put me in very good places.
The player of the player of the year was convincing during most of this season, but Flagg found the separation against Johni Broome of Auburn in the past two weeks. Thursday evening was a propulsion of the inevitable.
On the other hand, the last university match of Love, the 174th of his always fascinating career, ended up with him showing his best against the most about all the opponents. The guy who ended Mike Krzyzewski’s career in the Final Four of 2022 ended his university trip according to his conditions, but in a defeat during his 11th and last confrontation against Duke.
He not only had a 35 -point night – a tournament record in Arizona – but also committed zero turnarounds against a seeded n ° 1. He became the second player to have obtained several 20 points against Duke in the NCAA tournament (joining Anderson Hunt of UNLV in 1990 and 1991). He equaled Juan Dixon of Maryland with 178 career points against the Blue Devils, most never.
“I think it’s right,” said Duke coach Jon Scheyer, at CBS Sports. “We knew it was going to be his best in this match.”
Given the story between Love and Duke, Scheyer told me that the match plan was to make love a volume shooter and make him run from the 3 -point line. Scheyer added that it had been composed of the game, in the moment, but it would be impossible not to have at least a slight flashback at this New Orleans night in April 2022.
“I have drawn enough against him where I know what he is capable of. Obviously, it is in the bottom of your mind by playing against him,” said Scheyer. “Caleb was at the highest level this evening. We tried to make as difficult as possible, but some of the blows he struck, guy, there is not much more than you can do on this.”
When Duke went to Tucson last November to face Arizona, Love had a bad match: eight points on 13 shots in a home loss of 69-55. The Sweet 16 gave him an unexpected / appropriate chance for the redemption of the person, and he seized him. Even with Duke’s advance reaching 19 with 13:11 to play, love has not been withered. He scored 21 of his 35 points after the break, including a 3S dam that dismissed Duke in advance.
The Wildcats gave off as close as 91-86 with less than two minutes, but there was not enough land to make up for each other. Duke is too good. Unless a victory here, love had the love he deserved later. His teammates on the podium all congratulated him as well as his leadership.
“”He really took us all under his wing. He is a leader. He went through so much and taught us all so much, “said goalkeeper Jaden Bradley.
“If someone never thinks that he is not a good teammate, that’s not true,” said striker Henri Veesaar. “This is the best teammate we had. He is one of the best people I have never met. He pushed me so much in the past two years, I have been so grateful to him.”
He was a guy who was pushed out of the North Carolina. Look where the Tar Heels are now. Their problems extend far beyond the alchemy of Love in this locker room in his last season there, in 2022-23. How satisfied he must be satisfied on a podium and hear your teammates and coaches talk about you like that, especially after a loss, the last of your university life. In the locker room later, LOVE has thought about a career filled with glory that criticism.
“Most importantly, I grew up as a person outside the field (in Arizona),” Love Sports told CBS. “These are a large part of many preconceived concepts about me leaving my other school. The coach Lloyd, my teammates, they all accepted me for whom I was as a person, above all.”
Love has crossed five years attractive. His blow to beat Duke in 2022 will live in the history of Caroline, but he did not succeed – nor liked – enough to start and put an end to his university career of Talon de Tar. In Arizona, he found peace and a new path. He needed it. His last months at UNC bored him enormously. He heard all the disdain. He agreed in private.
“I love this guy,” said Lloyd about love. “It was an honor to be associated with him. Never had a bad interaction with him, never had bad body language, never had a bad attitude. He is just reassuring, because I lived the real essence of Caleb.
Love told me everything he heard. It hurt.
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“I was a bad teammate. I was a bad person, this, this and that. It was all wrong,” said Love. “I feel like I have shown that coming to Arizona. … We all have life problems that people may not know, we may not speak, and this is something in which I am proud, because that’s what I was going through. I was doing a lot outside the field, and I wanted someone to help me. My teammates were there for me, and I was there for them.”
Because as well as Flagg was all season, it was appropriate to see him offset by a five -year -old senior player, who went through almost all of this of the biggest sport programs. It would have been bad (cursed, even) so that Arizona was blown away by Duke and I love to fall flat in his university final. Fortunately, the spell found reasons to give us the goods and provide love with a moment it deserved.
I asked his locker what it was to do in a match against Flagg. Unsurprisingly, Love told me that he was as good as any player he was confronted with.
“He can do almost everything on the ground,” said Love. “He has an impact on the game in so many different ways. He can take you to the cup. He can pass. He can go. He can create for his teammates. He can block the shots, bounce it, put it on the head. … He gets the overhaul for a reason, so much respect for him. He has a brilliant future, and I am sure that I will see him in the league.”
LOVE’s journey could go any number of directions; Perhaps one day, these two will find themselves sharing space on a floor of the NBA. It would be pretty cool. Whether it happens or not, at least we have it. At least we had the best of Caleb Love the same evening that we took the best of Cooper Flagg. A guy deserved him, the other as hell deserved him.
