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The Duke Blue Devils suffered only their second loss of the season on Saturday night, falling in dramatic fashion to the Clemson Tigers at Littlejohn Coliseum by the final score of 77-71. Aside from the fact that this is the first loss for the 2nd-ranked Blue Devils in ACC play this season, the key takeaway on the Duke side of things is that National Player of the Year candidate Cooper Flagg looked mortal for the first time all season.
Flagg finished the game with 18 points, 5 rebounds and 3 steals… a respectable stat line for any freshman going into hostile territory against a very good in-conference opponent. However, Flagg has spent months proving he's not just any freshman. The presumed 1st overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft has been impressive and impenetrable since he stepped foot on campus, had scored just four points in the opening 34 minutes of the game, but while playing through cramped legs and illness, Flagg scored 14 points in the final six minutes of the game.
Unfortunately for Duke, the two points that Flagg didn't score came at an inopportune time. With under 20 seconds to go, Flagg had the ball and attacked the basket with the Blue Devils trailing by two, but fatigue — and a wet spot on the court — forced a turnover, allowing Clemson to clinch the win.
“He got the advantage downhill, and I'm taking that any day of the week. But there was a wet spot, and sometimes that's how it goes. But he really made every play in the last couple minutes just to will us,” Duke head coach Jon Scheyer said after the loss, per David Hale of ESPN.com. “We put so much on his shoulders. I have to help take some of that off because it's that time — we've got to get his body refreshed, reenergized. We've got to get him back. We know there's more there, and we have to help him recover.”
Duke returns home for their next two games, hosting a pair of new ACC foes — California and Stanford — before going back on the road on February 17th to take on the Virginia Cavaliers. If
