Top basketball recruit Cooper Flagg chooses Duke over UConn

Cooper Flagg, the nation’s consensus top player in the 2024 recruiting class, announced Monday that he will play his college basketball at Duke.

The 6-foot-9 small forward from Maine, who plays at Montverde Academy in Florida, had also been considering defending national champion UConn. His decision, announced on social media in conjunction with Slam Magazine, comes just ahead of the NCAA’s early signing period, which begins on Nov. 8.

Flagg’s commitment continues Jon Scheyer’s hot recruiting to start his coaching tenure.

Duke was No. 1 in the 247sports rankings for the Class of 2022 as Scheyer took the lead on putting together the incoming class for his first season as Hall of Famer Mike Krzyzewski’s designated successor. The Blue Devils had this year’s No. 2-ranked class with four top-25 recruits, and entered Wednesday ranked No. 4 before Flagg’s decision.

Duke already has commitments from five-star forwards Isaiah Evans and Jon Knueppel, as well as four-star forward Darren Harris in the 2024 class.

Flagg had called Duke his dream school, but added the Huskies to the mix after an official visit there in September, where he hung out with family friend and UConn’s 7-2 center Donovan Clingan.

Flagg and Clingan’s mothers were teammates in the 1990s at Maine and the pair put up a post on social media showing them wearing replicas of their mothers’ jerseys.

Flagg was expected to announce his decision last week, but postponed it after the fatal shootings in his home state.

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AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball