Cooper Flagg overcomes injury to snatch Player of the Year race from Johni Broome

The Duke Blue Devils saw a dream season flash before their eyes on Saturday night, as do-everything freshman Cooper Flagg was slow to get up after taking a hard foul in the first half of the team's game against Florida State at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Flagg — who, it should be said, has taken more than his fair share of contact this season — struggled to regain his balance and was eventually taken to the locker room while holding his eye.

Flagg has somehow lived up to all the prodigious hype that preceded his arrival in Durham — not just the next No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft but a generational prospect, with a skill set that the sport has seldom seen — and then some, a physical force and tremendous defender from day one who seems to grow more confident in his offensive game with each passing week. He has Duke looking like the most overwhelming team in the country right now; losing him to injury, just two weeks before Selection Sunday, would be a travesty for every basketball fan.

Luckily, though, it appears we've dodged a bullet. Not only did Flagg return from the locker room and take his seat back on the bench, but he also insisted on coming back into the game in the second half, propelling the Blue Devils to another dominant win — and maybe grabbing hold of the National Player of the Year race while he's at it.

Cooper Flagg shrugs off injury for another solid day vs. Florida State

Despite missing a large chunk of the action and playing just 19 minutes, Flagg wound up producing a fairly Cooper Flagg-esque statline on Saturday night: 16 points on 5-of-9 shooting (6-of-6 from the line) to go with six rebounds, four assists, two steals and a block. He's now up to 19.4 points, 7.6 rebounds, 4.1 assists, 1.5 steals and 1.1 blocks per game on the season, on healthy 49/37.5/82 shooting splits.

At this point, just months into his presumably brief collegiate career, it's getting hard to identify weaknesses in Flagg's game. He's growing more comfortable off the dribble, and as an outside shooter, becoming a three-level scorer on top of the preternatural instincts and physical gifts that already made him one of the best defenders and rebounders in the country. And while he had a bump in the road on Saturday, he may have taken another big step toward outlasting Auburn's Johni Broome in what's shaping up to be a blockbuster race for Player of the Year honors.

Johni Broome largely quiet in Auburn's big win over Kentucky

Auburn had no trouble surviving a trip to Rupp Arena, putting Kentucky in a headlock for 40 minutes in a 94-78 win that wasn't particularly close for the final 25 minutes or so. But it was the Tigers' backcourt that did almost all of the damage, with Miles Kelly, Chad Baker-Mazara and Tahaad Pettiford scoring a whopping 73 of those 94 points. Broome, on the other hand, was quiet, nearly being held scoreless for the entire first half en route to nine points and six rebounds on 3-of-9 shooting.

Of course, even if he's not scoring, Broome is still felt elsewhere; he added three more steals to his tally on Saturday. But the big man didn't exactly take advantage of a prime opportunity to make a statement on a national stage, and it feels like Flagg might be trending upward as the regular season reaches its final week. It was also an example of the ways in which Broome is ever so slightly more limited than Flagg, who is slightly more advanced as a ball-handler and offensive initiator. Broome is tremendous, and could very easily rally to win this award with a big performance in the Iron Bowl rematch and the SEC Tournament. But at this point, Flagg has more or less closed the statistical gap, and it's hard to deny him when you turn on the tape.