������Ƶ

SAN ANTONIO – Mark this down just in case. Only five freshmen have ever been named Most Outstanding Player at the Final Four, from Utah’s Arnie Ferrin in 1944, the year before he was drafted for World War II, to Duke’s Tyus Jones in 2015. It just doesn’t happen very often. Takes a special player in the right place at the right time.

Speak of the Blue Devil, here comes Cooper Flagg. Let’s spend Friday afternoon at the Final Four with the most ballyhooed player in the field — not to mention the youngest.

NO COACH K, NO PROBLEM: Duke reaches men's Final Four without Coach K, a first in 47 years

It is 12:50 p.m. at the Alamodome media interview room and the Associated Press is introducing its college basketball player of the year. The Duke team members are scattered in the back rows. One of their own is about to get the award. The best college player in the land — who’s only been 18 since just before Christmas.

“I think this whole tournament process so far has been kind of surreal for me,” Flagg is saying as he accepts the award while the other Blue Devils cheer. “These are the moments you dream about as a little kid. I’m just trying to cherish these moments with my teammates that we have left. The road ends here.”

This is a Final Four of veterans, transfers on their second (or third) wind, and other long-timers who have waited for their chance. Except for Duke. Duke starts three freshmen, and that includes Flagg who already had four double-doubles for the Blue Devils before he turned 18. If Duke is to get to the podium Monday night — which would require staring down the Houston defense Saturday and then whichever SEC power is the last one standing — it is hard to envision Flagg not having a big weekend. A MOP-type weekend.

It is 1:30 p.m. and here comes Cooper Flagg again. Another player of the year honor — this one the Oscar Robertson Award from the U.S. Basketball Writers Association. Plus his scheduled Friday session with coach Jon Scheyer. The presenter mentions Flagg is the youngest winner in the history of the award. Just like he was the youngest Division I player ever to score 40 points in a game. There are cameras, microphones, media by the dozens. What was it Flagg said earlier, how he just hoped to be a kid whenever he could? Right.

“I think I'm a regular kid. I'm okay at basketball, I guess,” he says. “Just doing normal things that any teenager, any kids like to do. Not acting a certain type of way, being humble, being who I am, how I was raised by my parents. So yeah, I think just being normal and knowing I'm no different than anybody else.”

A SERIES OF UNUSUAL EVENTS: The history of March Madness in San Antonio

Good luck being no different than anybody else in this town this weekend.

The day before, Scheyer had been asked to name his favorite Cooper Flagg commercial. Imagine Mike Krzyzewski being asked that question at his last Final Four, which was only three years ago. You can’t. The world has changed. Anyway, Scheyer picked the AT&T Bingo commercial when Flagg co-starred with his grandmother. Surely a March Madness first.

Now Flagg is at the microphone talking about fitting together all the elements of the modern college athlete and the maze of business and basketball. “You have to be able to kind of decipher through and figure it out and keep basketball the most important thing. Obviously, it's the first thing. I think just having a tight circle, me and my family, all these people keep me grounded, keep me focused. They do a good job of keeping my plate as clean as possible, giving me time to rest, recover, focus on basketball.”

His parents are in the audience. Someone mentions that the Duke mothers have pledged to get tattoos if their sons come home champions. Kelly Flagg has even said she will let Cooper choose the style and location.

“I'm going to have to carefully consider my options and really make a smart decision here on what I want to do, if I want to torture her or . . .," Cooper says. "I'm going to have to think about that one.” The story has come out that Kelly played basketball with the young Cooper in the driveway until being sidelined by a torn knee meniscus. “Honestly I don't know if she was playing one-on-one with me to better my development. I think she just enjoyed beating me all the time,” Cooper says. “That competitive edge is what pushed her to come play against me. Yeah, both my mom and my dad, the countless hours they spent taking me to the gym at night, rebounding, passing me the ball. I have to give my dad a little bit of credit. Mom got a little lazy sometimes. Dad would never say no to taking me to the gym no matter what time it was.”

JOURNEYS: This year’s Final Four teams prove there is more than 1 way to get to San Antonio

Now about this tattoo business. Scheyer says he will ask his wife to get one as well if Duke wins. Maybe him, too. Flagg, the hottest thing to come from the state of Maine since the lobster roll, has helped make such banter possible.

“It's the person he is every day,” Scheyer says. “His energy is contagious for our team. He's an amazing leader. The job he's done in the classroom at Duke (4.0 first term). Just everything he does has taken our program to a new height this year. He's humble. Up here he's humble. Behind the scenes not as much, which I'm good with. That's what I want. But him, his family, they've been a dream come true for me, for us and our program.” It is nearly 2 p.m. and Scheyer and Flagg must get to the Alamodome court for the Blue Devils’ open practice. Sitting off to the side in the interview room have been Ralph and Kelly Flagg. “Just seeing the way he carries himself up on the podium, it’s very easy to forget how old he is,” father Ralph says. He goes on to describe how the family has kept the circle around their son very small, and highly selective, to get him through this new fame and prepare him for his dive into the deep end of the NBA. They have been learning as they go.

“There’s nobody from Maine to lean on about those type of things because it hasn’t happened out of Maine before. I think it was basically relying on our own values,” says Ralph, who has had his own concerns that Cooper have time to be the normal kid he wants to be. “He understands now that it’s going to be a little bit different for him. We try to provide him with every opportunity that he can. “He’s already asked, when this season is over when are we getting back to Maine?”

"It fills us both with an immense amount of pride" 👏 chatted with Cooper Flagg's parents after the freshman was named AP Player of the Year 🗣️

— ������Ƶ March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB)

Ralph mentions he first got the idea a long time ago that basketball might be something to take his son far, even into a Final Four media storm in San Antonio. There was a third and fourth-grade recreational league when Cooper was playing as a second-grader. “There’s a ball going out of bounds, he runs over saves it inbounds to a teammate, sprints up the floor and gets the ball back and throws it up for a layup. As a second grader, how do you have the body control and the know-how? He watched so much basketball growing up. He would literally sit and watch basketball all the time.”

Houston and its cold-eyed defense awaits this basketball phenom. Flagg can’t do it all by himself, of course. He just happens to be the biggest name in Duke’s bid to seize the moment with teenagers. Kon Knueppel and Khaman Maluach are other freshmen starters of renown and then there are veteran guards Sion James and Tyrese Proctor and a solid bench to fill in the puzzle. “The brilliance of Jon is how he insulated those guys with veteran guys. They don't get talked about enough,” Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said. “I think you can get away with playing some freshmen as long as you’ve got veterans around them. But those guys stopped being freshmen somewhere around Thanksgiving. By Christmas, hell, they might have been sophomores. Now they're just pros.”

Especially Flagg.

Cooper Flagg. Absolute cinema. 🙌

— ������Ƶ March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB)

So it is Houston’s turn, and the Cougars are old hands at tormenting other team’s stars. Did you see what they did to poor Tennessee last weekend? It took the whole first half for the Vols to get to 15 points. Houston was on the defensive attack from the tip. “What helps us is those first 10 minutes,” Emanuel Sharp said Thursday. “I feel like they got uncomfortable, and it set the tone for the rest of the game.” Cooper Flagg and company are a challenge to them. But no big scorer scares a team that allows fewer points than any other defense in the country.

“I feel like we have elite perimeter defenders, we’re going to do a good job of showing bodies. We’ll see what we do out there,” Milos Uzan has said. “I believe I can play in the NBA. I look at like I’m competing against another guy.”

It is 2:30 p.m. and Duke is on the court, with players lofting shots at both ends and a huge wave of blue-clad fans in the stands for the open practice. Flagg and Knueppel are trading jumpers from the top of the 3-point arc. “He’s obviously a fantastic player, but he’s an even better person off the court and you can’t say that about everybody that’s as talented as he is,” Knueppel had said before practice. “You see the media stuff, everybody surrounding him. I don’t envy any of the stuff he has to do.”

Scheyer is being interviewed at midcourt, and Flagg sneaks behind him and waves to the camera. Just a kid being a kid.

He’ll be more than that Saturday night. At 18 years, three months and 16 days, his college basketball moment of truth has come against the most feared Division I defense in America. And the elite freshman MOP club waits to see if it is to get a new member.