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Cooper Flagg and Kon Knueppel lived up to the hype in Duke’s season-opening 96-62 win over Maine on Monday night.
Flagg and Knueppel are the 2 jewels of Duke’s 2024 recruiting class and are entering the year as projected lottery picks — or in Flagg’s case, the No. 1 prospect — in the 2025 NBA Draft. Their debut was highly-anticipated, albeit against low-major competition in Maine.
So far, so good.
1-0 ✅ #DukeDUB pic.twitter.com/ldWNe4T9xr
— Duke Men’s Basketball (@DukeMBB) November 5, 2024
Knueppel led all scorers with 22 points on Saturday. He was very active in Duke’s offense early on and ended up making 3-of-8 from downtown. He also contributed 4 rebounds, 2 assists and 1 steal.
As for Flagg, he also had a strong day in his highly-anticipated collegiate debut. He poured in 18 points on 15 shot attempts and made all 6 of his free throws. He also led Duke with 7 rebounds and 5 assists. Flagg was particularly effective as a passer in his debut.
In total, 6 different Duke players scored in double figures: Knueppel, Flagg, Caleb Foster, Tyrese Proctor, Sion James and Mason Gillis.
Coach Jon Scheyer ran a relatively small rotation in this game. Only 8 players earned more than 7 minutes of playing time in this game. It will be interesting to see if Scheyer’s rotation expands at all during nonconference play.
Duke will be in action again on Friday night against Army.
Spenser is a news editor for Saturday Down South and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.
