NEWARK, N.J. — Nate Oats promised he wouldn't let Cooper Flagg get too comfortable working against the same defender in Alabama basketball's NCAA Tournament Elite Eight matchup against Duke Saturday night.
The UA coach delivered on that promise, but against a superior opponent, delivering a win proved even tougher.
The Blue Devils' do-everything forward sank a 3-pointer to open the scoring but didn't have a dominant showing in Duke's 85-65 win over the Crimson Tide. As it turned out, the East Region's No. 1 seed didn't need Flagg to play a Superman role at Prudential Arena. Duke's defense suffocated an Alabama offense that scored a record-breaking 113 points just two nights earlier, managing to get in the face of UA's 3-point specialists while still denying pick and rolls inside, along with just about everything else UA tried.
As for Flagg, UA opened by putting center Grant Nelson on the National Player of the Year. But it didn't take long for Oats' rotational defensive plan on Flagg to change. Before the first media timeout at under 16 minutes, Chris Youngblood took a turn on him, and forward Mo Dioubate, who is probably more suited to deal with Flagg's diverse skill set than any other defender UA, locked up with him coming out of the same timeout. Before long, it was Jarin Stevenson on Flagg, and eventually even guard Labaron Philon.
All before the 10-minute mark of the first half.
That's a lot of looks to throw at one player, and overall, it worked quite well. Alabama forced Flagg into a short stretch of first-half misses, but had more trouble containing Duke's other scorers. Despite the wunderkind's exploits, the Blue Devils are anything but a one-man show. Enter Kon Knueppel, who had a game-high 21 points with five assists.
Flagg had a dunk attempt rudely rejected by Nelson early in the second half, leading to a 3-pointer by Sears on the other end of the floor to cut the lead to 50-43. Mo Dioubate followed a few minutes later with ...
