Ad Disclosure
Duke, all season long, has been Cooper Flagg’s team. The Blue Devils have long been viewed as a national title favorite because of the individual brilliance of their star freshman forward. It’s Flagg and Duke. It has rarely been just Duke.
It was on Thursday.
With a spot in the semifinals of the ACC Tournament, Duke faced a halftime deficit for just the fourth time all season. And when the second half against Georgia Tech opened, Duke was without Flagg. He was helped off the floor late in the first half with an apparent ankle injury and was later ruled out for the remainder of the game. Duke trailed 31-26 to the eighth-seeded Yellow Jackets after 20 minutes.
Sans Flagg, the Blue Devils opened the second half with a 12-0 run to seize control of the game. Kon Knueppel ignited the spurt with a 3-pointer 74 seconds in. Tyrese Proctor capped the run with a fastbreak jam. With 8:01 to play, Duke stretched its lead to 11. Georgia Tech briefly got it back to 6, but the Blue Devils closed with poise to win 78-70 and book a spot in the semis.
“I couldn’t be more proud,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said after the game. “You’re facing a team fighting for their life, we suffer two injuries in the first half and to respond to all that was really impressive. So many guys stepped up, and Kon was so solid throughout.”
Duke also saw Maliq Brown exit the game in the first half with an apparent shoulder injury. He didn’t return either. Brown didn’t take a shot. Flagg finished with 2 points on 1-of-7 shooting in 15 minutes.
Instead, it was the Knueppel show. The sweet-shooting wing scored a career-high 28 points while drilling 7 of his 14 shots and 12 of his 13 free throw attempts. He scored 11 of Duke’s final 13 points — all of them at the free throw line.
Knueppel also added 8 assists, 5 rebounds, 2 steals, and a block. Isaiah Evans added 14 points with 4 made 3s. Khaman Maluach had 14 points and 9 boards.
Georgia Tech was led by 24 points from Duncan Powell, who made 6 of his 14 triples.
The Yellow Jackets made 7 of their 14 triples in the second half, but once Duke ballooned its lead, the margin never got back under 6. Duke answered a quartet of 3-pointers in the closing minutes with points every single time. Knueppel kept finding ways to get to the free throw line to sap Georgia Tech’s energy.
Duke (29-3) will await the winner of Wake Forest and North Carolina. The first of 2 ACC Tournament semifinal games takes place Friday at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
