NEWARK, NEW JERSEY – MARCH 27: Cooper Flagg #2 and Kon Knueppel #7 of the Duke Blue Devils react … More
For the past 15 years, the Duke men’s basketball program has relied heavily on freshmen. Even as the sport changed in recent years due to Name, Image and Likeness deals and the transfer portal, leading to more players available and staying in school longer, the Blue Devils remained committed to bringing in the best young talent. The approach, for the most part, has worked well, particularly last season when freshmen Cooper Flagg, Kon Knueppel and Khaman Maluach led the Blue Devils to the Final Four.
On Wednesday night, Duke could become just the third team with three players selected in the top 10 of the same NBA draft. Flagg is the certain No. 1 pick, with the Dallas Mavericks assured of choosing him, while Knueppel is No. 3 among The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie’s top draft prospects and No. 6 in ESPN’s Jonathan Givony’s top prospects rankings. Maluach is No. 11 and No. 7, respectively, according to Vecenie and Givony.
The only times that schools had three top 10 selections? In 2007, Florida had Al Horford (No. 3 by the Atlanta Hawks), Corey Brewer (No. 7 by the Minnesota Timberwolves) and Joakim Noah (No. 9 by the Chicago Bulls), three juniors who helped the Gators win back-to-back NCAA tournament titles. And in 2019, Duke had Zion Williamson (No. 1 by the New Orleans Pelicans), RJ Barrett (No. 3 by the New York Knicks) and Cam Reddish (No. 10 by the Hawks), three freshmen who were highly regarded recruits and acclimated to the college game without much of an issue.
In 2019, Williamson was the national player of the year, averaged 22.6 points and 8.9 rebounds per game and shot 68% from the field, while Barrett was a first team All-American (22.6 points, 7.6 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game) and Reddish was third on the team in scoring (13.5 points per game). That year, the Blue Devils (32-6) won the Atlantic Coast Conference regular season and tournament titles and entered the NCAA tournament as the No. 1 overall seed. They lost 68-67 in the Elite Eight to Michigan State.
This year’s Duke freshmen have similarities to the 2019 group.
Flagg, a 6-foot-8 forward who doesn’t turn 19 until December, became only the fourth first-year player in history to sweep the national player of the year awards. He led the Blue Devils with 19.2 points, 7.5 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.4 steals and 1.4 blocks per game. Knueppel, a 6-foot-5 guard, was Duke’s second-best player, averaging 14.4 points per game and shooting 47.9% from the field, including 40.6% on 3’s. And Maluach, a 7-foot-1 center, averaged 8.6 points, 6.6 rebounds and 1.3 blocks in just 21.2 minutes per game. All three excelled on both ends of the court.
Duke won the ACC regular season and tournament titles and entered the NCAAs having won 27 of its previous 28 games. The Blue Devils then cruised to the Final Four, where they blew a 9-point lead with just over two minutes left and lost, 70-67, to Houston. Still, Duke finished with a 39.29 adjusted efficiency margin, according to analyst Ken Pomeroy, which was the highest in the nation and the second-best all-time since Pomeroy began publishing the team data in the 1996-97 season.
Now, more than 11 weeks since losing their final college game, Duke’s freshmen are back in the spotlight.
Since 2011, the Blue Devils have had 20 players selected in the first round of the NBA draft after their freshman seasons. It’s a certainty they will have three more following Wednesday’s first round. Flagg is a shoo-in to join Kyrie Irving (2011), Williamson (2019) and Paolo Banchero (2023) as the fourth Duke freshman to be the top pick. Meanwhile, the destinations of Knueppel and Maluach remain less clear, although there’s a good chance they’ll be among the first 10 players to hear their names called by NBA commissioner Adam Silver during Wednesday’s draft. If that were to happen, it will be another reminder that Duke had one of the best freshmen classes in men’s college basketball history.
