Kentucky star hands bulletin board material to Duke with Cooper Flagg jab

The Duke Blue Devils at the start of the Cooper Flagg era and the Kentucky Wildcats in the beginning stages of the Mark Pope era have gotten off to expected starts. The former quickly dispatched Maine on Monday in their season-opener before trouncing Army on Friday to move to 2-0 on the year. Kentucky, meanwhile, has outscored Wright State and Bucknell by a combined score of 203-134.

Now, these two are set for a collision course on Tuesday night when Duke and Kentucky play in the Champions Classic. However, there might already be a little bit of bad blood boiling for that matchup thanks to some perhaps ill-advised trash talk.

Veteran Kentucky guard Kerr Kriisa, who spent his first three seasons at Arizona and last year with West Virginia, was asked on Saturday after the Wildcats' win over Bucknell about matching up against Duke and the superstar freshman, Flagg, who is projected unanimously to be the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft. Needless to say based on Kriisa's comments, he's none too impressed.

"Obviously the whole world is talking about Cooper Flagg," Kriisa said. "So we’re excited to play against the No. 1 draft pick. Congrats to him already."

No way that kind of comment backfires, right?

Kerr Kriisa gives Duke, Cooper Flagg ammo with unnecessary jab

All told, it's a bit rich for Kriisa to be coming after Flagg and Duke for the hype around the No. 1 prospect in the 2025 draft. While he has a breadth of experience after four full seasons previously in college, he's a role player off of Kentucky's bench who's averaging 3.0 points, 8.5 assists and 2.5 rebounds per game on 2-of-7 shooting through two games.

Flagg, on the other hand, has been as-advertised through his first two college games, putting up 15.5 points, nine rebounds, four asists, 2.5 steals and one block in only 27.5 minutes per game. His shooting could be a bit more efficient, especially while sitting at 25% from long-range thus far, but he's been the goods for Jon Scheyer's team.

What's more, Duke doesn't just boast Flagg. His fellow freshman, Kon Knueppel, leads the Blue Devils in scoring at 18.5 points per game to this point while Tyrese Proctor and Sion James offer a ton of experience around them. Kentucky, meanwhile, is a roster largely built in the transfer portal that is still coalescing to some degree, despite the results of their first two games.

Who knows — maybe that Kentucky experience, even if not together or in Lexington — will make Flagg, Knueppel and the Blue Devils look mortal in the Champions Classic. But Kriisa's comments give Duke plenty of ammo to fuel them which, frankly, was completely unnecessary.

Duke and Kentucky face off in the aforementioned Champions Classic on Tuesday, Nov. 12 at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN.