SAN ANTONIO — There’s a tiny room with one black leather chair in the bowels of the Alamodome where Cooper Flagg sits for the next six minutes until Duke’s locker room to the media for good. Until the cameras disappear, if only for a moment, Flagg will sit and wait. Until the reused questions about one final late-game play gone awry can get shelved for the night, Flagg will sit and wait.
Nothing can fix this pain, but a quiet room away from peeping eyes can help.
Flagg isn’t alone. His roommate Kon Knueppel is in there, too, but the pain is palpable. Flagg’s anguish was apparent in the postgame press conference, just moments after a Duke collapse that will go down as one of the biggest choke jobs in the Final Four’s illustrious history.
Fair or not, Flagg’s clutch gene just became debate TV’s next draft topic straw man after his go-ahead fadeaway jumper came up just short in the final 10 seconds of Saturday’s 70-67 loss to Houston.
“It’s the play coach drew up,” Flagg said. “Took it into the paint. Thought I got my feet set, rose up. Left it short obviously. A shot I’m willing to live with in the scenario. I went up on the rim, trust the work that I’ve put in.”
The final moment of Flagg’s phenomenal freshman season will be him being hidden in a room with an “authorized personnel only” sign taped to the door. It feels cruel and unforgiving on a night when a coronation felt imminent. Hours earlier, Flagg had earned the prestigious Wooden Award, handed to the best player in college basketball. For 39 minutes, he was just that.
Flagg notched 27 points, seven rebounds, four assists, three blocks and two steals. He became the first player to ever lead his team in points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks in a Final Four game since the defensive stats became official in 1986. His right-wing trey and enormous swat in an 46-second span felt like Flagg’s next big March Moment and a new staple of…
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