The college basketball recruiting landscape seemingly knows no boundaries for Newport’s Cooper Flagg.
The 15-year-old freshman at Nokomis Regional High School, who has been ranked as the No. 3 boys basketball player nationally in the Class of 2025 by ESPN, announced on social media Sunday evening that he has received a scholarship offer from perennial power Duke University.
“Extremely excited and happy to announce I have been offered a full athletic scholarship to Duke University,” he wrote. “Huge thanks to Coach [Jon] Scheyer and Coach [Amile] Jefferson and the rest of the Duke staff!”
Flagg has described Duke as his “dream school” to at least one national recruiting reporter, and he got to see the Blue Devils play North Carolina at this year’s NCAA Division I Final Four in New Orleans in early April while participating in a USA Basketball Men’s Junior National Team minicamp.
Flagg joins Cameron and Cayden Boozer — twin sons of 2001 Duke national champion and former NBA forward Carlos Boozer — as early Class of 2025 scholarship offer recipients from Duke and Scheyer, who replaced the recently retired Mike Krzyzewski as the Blue Devils’ head coach.
Cameron Boozer, a 6-8 power forward, currently is the top-ranked Class of 2025 player by ESPN. Cayden Boozer, a 6-3 point guard, is No. 24 nationally in the same rankings.
Flagg received earlier scholarship offers from UCLA, Michigan, Iowa, the University of Maine, Albany and Bryant, though he can’t sign a National Letter of Intent to accept any offer until November 2024, early in his senior year of high school.
Flagg and his twin brother Ace are set to transfer from Nokomis to national prep power Montverde (Florida) Academy after the end of the current school year.
Cooper Flagg, a 6-foot-7 wing, became the first freshman to be named Gatorade Player of the Year for either boys or girls basketball in Maine history and was the top choice on the 2022 Bangor Daily News All-Maine team this past winter after leading Nokomis to a 21-1 record and the school’s first state title in boys basketball.
The five-star recruit averaged 20.5 points, 10 rebounds, 6.2 assists, 3.7 steals and 3.7 blocked shots while playing an average of 26 minutes per game for coach Earl Anderson’s Warriors and shot 62 percent from the field and 67 percent from the free-throw line.
Flagg capped off the season with game-high totals of 22 points and 16 rebounds as Nokomis defeated Falmouth 43-27 in the Class A state championship game — the Warriors’ 20th consecutive victory.
Since the end of the high school season, Flagg has returned to the national travel basketball scene where he has attracted most of his recruiting interest.
This spring the Flagg twins have played for Maine United’s 15-and-under squad, coached by former University of Maine men’s basketball standout Andy Bedard as well as his mother, former Nokomis and UMaine women’s basketball standout Kelly Bowman Flagg, as it has become the first Maine club to compete in the highly acclaimed Nike Elite Youth Basketball League.
That team compiled a 7-1 record in EYBL tournaments held in Orlando, Florida, and Indianapolis, Indiana, with Scheyer and members of his staff reported to have scouted him during the Orlando event.
According to the Maine United website, the team is set to return to EYBL tournament action July 7-10 in Kansas City and hope to qualify for the season-ending Peach Jam on July 20-24 in Augusta, Georgia.
