How will NC State deal with Duke superstar freshman, Cooper Flagg?

Cooper Flagg is just a freshman, but he’s no ordinary freshman.

Flagg is averaging 19.5 ppg, 8 rebounds and 4 assists. He’s shooting 48% from the floor and 33% from long range. He’s 81% from the line, blocking 1.2 shots per game and adding 1.5 steals per game. The kid is doing it all.

He’s 6’9, he’s athletic and physical and he can score from anyone on the court. He’s an absolute matchup nightmare for NC State.

Kevin Keatts is married to small ball this season. He doesn’t have a ton of options (due to roster construction), but he does have 6’9 transfer junior Ismael Diouf on the roster. However, for some reason, Diouf hasn’t yet logged a minute at the 4 spot, despite being an ideal size for the stretch 4 position

Instead, NC State is going to have to rely on Dontrez Styles and Dennis Parker Jr, both of whom are 6’6.

Middlebrooks will be dealing with 7’2 Khaman Maluach in the paint and the NC State guards will be deal with 6’6 Proctor, 6’6 James and 6’7 Knueppel, all of whom are shooting around 40% from 3 pt range.

NC State is going to have to be super physical with Flagg, but it’s not like Styles or Parker has much weight to push him around. Parker is also 205 and Styles has 5 pounds at 210.

I’ll be honest, watching the film on Duke and Cooper Flagg, I’m not sure what the game plan would be defensively. Certainly you don’t want them taking open 3. But Duke is great at forcing help and finding the open man. So the key for NC State will be to not rely on help side defense. Instead, of extending the defense, you could sag back and make them shoot contested 3s?

But then again, they have such a size advantage that they can just dump it down and force you to help out.

And really,  your best bet is to speed them up and try to out athlete them, since they aren’t uber athletic. However, they are disciplined and handle the ball well, so that might lead to forcing help and easy buckets.

On paper there isn’t a great matchup for NC State. Hill, who likes to get to the basket, will have to deal with Flagg and Maluach, both great at protecting the rim. Styles has struggled against bigger 4s, and this will be his toughest test yet. NC State can attack Koneppel off the bounce, but he’s 6’7 and NC State doesn’t even have a great iso guy outside of Hill.

Look, you have to run it out there, play as hard as you can, as physical as you can, and hope you have a hot shooting night. You also have to hope Duke has an off night. Statistically, they do nothing poorly, and the only place NC State is better is in Turnover % and Steal %. NC State has to turn Duke over, but I don’t think ramping up the pressure against a Duke team with this much versatility is going to be enough. I hope I’m wrong.