Cooper Flagg is probably going to be the top pick in the NBA draft this year.
His mom still wants him to make his free throws.
The world may be getting to know Kelly Flagg as the passionate mother of Cooper and Ace Flagg, but she also has a long and storied basketball resume herself.
Her name was Kelly Bowman at the time, and she was a star at Nokomis high school in Newport before helping lead the University of Maine to its only NCAA basketball tournament win in 1999. She later coached at Nokomis, and was a coach for her sons’ club basketball team.
Now she’s a mainstay in the stands, supporting her sons with an equal mix of basketball knowledge and enthusiasm. And they’ve been giving her plenty of reasons to cheer.
“It’s been kind of a whirlwind this year for us,” she told the Bangor Daily News on Monday. She and her husband, Ralph, have had a lot of games and achievements to keep up with.
Cooper Flagg has been nothing short of dominant in his freshman year at Duke University, and was named Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year for the No. 1 ranked Blue Devils heading into tournament action. Ace Flagg won another high school state championship in a third different state with Greensboro Day School in North Carolina, and will be heading to Kelly’s alma mater to play at UMaine next season as a highly anticipated recruit.
A few years ago, three of the Flaggs — Ace, Cooper and their older brother Hunter — helped lead Nokomis to a Maine state championship.
Kelly has “pinch-me moments pretty regularly” watching Cooper at Duke as he “has sort of broken the mold for what can happen for a kid from Maine.”
But she also knows the success didn’t happen overnight or by accident. She’s been there for all of the hard work that has spanned from second grade rec league games to the bright lights of Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium.
“One of my favorite things this season has been sitting in Cameron Indoor and hearing them announce the starters, and hearing them say, ‘From Newport, Maine,’ Kelly said. “It’s an incredible feeling that I really can’t describe fully.”
Cooper’s Duke team is now heading into the NCAA tournament as a No. 1 seed.
“We’re just so proud of him and the work that he’s put in,” Kelly said about Cooper.
Ace’s hard work and development will continue here in the Pine Tree State as he gets set to start the next step in his journey at UMaine.
“He’s done such a great job of being his own person, being authentically who he is as a player, and developing in his own time,” Kelly said of Ace. “And we’re so excited to see him play at the University of Maine next year, and kind of follow in my footsteps with that program and Chris Markwood.”
In just his third year in charge of the team, Markwood led the Black Bears to the America East championship, falling one game short of the NCAA tournament Saturday.
Kelly said she and others went to a watch party in North Carolina for that America East final, and said the Black Bears “put up a good fight” against a tough Bryant University team.
She is very excited about Ace’s return to Maine, and so are Mainers.
“All the support that we have felt from afar, all those people, now it’s going to culminate in them getting to go and be there in person, every game,” she said about Ace’s forthcoming arrival at UMaine, where Hunter is already a student. “So many people have reached out to say that they’re buying season tickets next year to go and watch Ace. It’s great for the program; it’s great for our family. It’s great for Ace to have that support.”
Kelly Flagg spoke to the BDN while promoting the “Sole Support: Moms of Sports” campaign, a partnership with foot care company Dr. Scholl’s that focuses on the support provided by athletes’ moms.
Ace and Cooper have been based in North Carolina this basketball season. That won’t be the case during the one that follows, and what has already been a whirlwind schedule for Kelly and Ralph is sure to get even more complicated.
“It’s gonna be tricky for us next year,” she acknowledged, explaining how she and her husband had to sometimes “divide and conquer” Duke and Greensboro Day games between the two of them when there were scheduling conflicts.
“Next year is going to be even infinitely more difficult. One of us may be in Maine. One of us may be who knows where,” she said. “And so, we’ll make it work, and just knowing that we have the support of the entire state of Maine is going to make that so much easier.”
Another difficulty for her is balancing the mentalities of a mom and a coach. She noted that it hasn’t been that long since she was coaching Cooper and Ace on their Maine United club team a few years ago.
“I know there are some people who are able to do a better job of separating,” she said when asked about that balance, adding that she can be “just so intense” in the moment at times.
“I know my kids, and so I can see when they’re not maybe dialed in on something or doing something I know that they should be doing,” she said. But she’s there for support, not to give coaching advice.
She credited Duke head coach John Scheyer for the “great job” he’s done this season, saying that he “should have been the ACC coach of the year, in my opinion.”
She pays a lot of attention to the coaching piece of the game. She stands up and is always trying to hear how Scheyer is coaching the team during timeouts “because I’m so dialed in, I want to hear everything he’s saying in those timeouts.”
And if there’s one area of the game that she doesn’t hold back with Cooper, it’s the foul shooting.
“I’ll get on him about missing free throws, that really gets me upset,” she said.
Cooper led Duke in points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks during the regular season. But when it comes to his free-throw percentage, he still trails one very important person: his mom.
She shot 84 percent from the free-throw line as a senior and key player on that historic 1998-1999 UMaine team.
Cooper is right behind her, with an 83 percent free-throw percentage so far this year.
He seems increasingly likely to get a chance to make some free throws during the NCAA tournament. While he sustained an ankle injury last week in the ACC tournament, his coach told ESPN on Sunday that the goal is for Cooper to be back in time for Duke’s March Madness opener Friday.
He heads into Friday trailing his mom in another important category as well: NCAA tournament wins.
To be fair, he hasn’t had a chance at one of those wins yet as a freshman. But for now, his mom stands alone in NCAA tourney wins among their family.
Asked about what this moment means, especially as someone already etched into Maine basketball history, Kelly Flagg called it “a really cool story” and said it is exciting that history has a chance to repeat itself.
“But for the next five days, I can still brag that I’m the only Flagg who has won a tournament game in the NCAA tourney,” Kelly said.
She made it clear that she won’t be upset if Cooper eclipses her on that record. As always, she’ll be rooting for him.