Early dominance: An oral history of Duke star Cooper Flagg’s rise to prominence in Maine

Some say the whispers started in the seventh grade. Maybe it was the sixth. Or the fifth.

TJ Maines, a longtime high school basketball coach in Maine, first heard them when Cooper Flagg was in the fourth grade.

Wait, what? An imposing 10-year-old from Newport running courts across central Maine?

“(My players) would tell me, ‘Coach, the best player on our (AAU) team is in fourth grade,’” said Maines, now the Athletic Director at Cony High School in Augusta, Maine. “I was like, ‘Get outta here.’ So I went to watch them play. … He stood out. He was dominating everybody.”

His teammates were two years older, but Flagg was better, and anyone he shared a gym with knew it. The only one who came close at the time was his twin brother, Ace.

By the time they were in middle school, Cooper and Ace were hard to hide. As 6-foot, 7-inch and 6-foot, 6-inch eighth graders, they dominated scrimmages against high school competition and turned heads without trying.

The oldest Flagg sibling, Hunter, played at Nokomis High School in Newport, Maine, from 2018 to 2022, so when his brothers entered as freshmen in the fall of 2021, coaches in the region were well aware of what was coming.

“We would see Cooper and Ace in their socks after the game as eighth graders or seventh graders and they’re above the rim, they’re just messing around,” Jay Dangler, then-head coach at Messalonskee High School of Oakland, Maine, said.

But as the pair took the court for Nokomis for the first time at 14 years old, no one was quite ready for what they got.

The Warriors finished 2019-20 — their last full season before the COVID-19 pandemic — with a 1-17 record, dead last in Class A North. They had never won a state championship in boys basketball. The school’s lone girls’ title came in 2001, an undefeated campaign led by coach Earl Anderson. Nokomis hired Anderson out of an eight-year coaching retirement to take over the boys program in the summer of 2021. He cited a love for the game and connection to the school as factors for the reunion.

And then, of course, there were the Flaggs.

The reckoning began at 9 a.m. on a Saturday in a preseason tournament at Skowhegan High School. The Warriors matched up against Class AA Windham, and Cooper against Eagles’ 6-foot, 7-inch senior center Matthew Fox for the tip-off.

Cooper won the jump ball. Nokomis won the game by 40 points.

“It was clear from the warmups and the jump ball that he moved way more fluid than a normal kid that age is supposed to move,” Fox said.

Three hours later, leading Class AA Thornton Academy by double digits in the game’s final five minutes, Cooper reeled in a defensive rebound, sprinted 84 feet past two defenders and unleashed a tomahawk jam over another two.

“It was like five dribbles and he was at the rim with a dunk,” Lawrence High School head coach Jason Pellerin said. “The video was being sent around to the (Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference) coaches, (saying), ‘This is going to be a real problem. Anybody got an answer for this?’ And we’re all like, ‘No.’”

The message was clear: Cooper Flagg had arrived. His dominance was an inevitability. But just to ensure everyone got the memo, Nokomis scheduled a game against eventual Class AA state champion South Portland to close the preseason. On that team was current Tennessee forward J.P. Estrella, a top-100 recruit in the class of 2023.

What happened next kicked off one of the most memorable seasons in the history of Maine high school basketball and accelerated the spiral of hype for Cooper that has continued through two seasons at Montverde Academy and into his tenure at Duke.

“After that South Portland game they played in the preseason, everyone was like, ‘Give me a break. This kid is through the roof. He can’t stay in Maine,’” Maines said.

Beginning in South Portland and ending with the Warriors’ state championship run, below is a collection of stories from those who awed at — and suffered at the hands of — Cooper, Ace and the 2021-22 Nokomis boys’ basketball team.

Preseason Tournament

Nokomis at South Portland

Kevin Millington, South Portland head coach: “Because we were coming off COVID, our superintendent had said that we could only have a 50% capacity … but the appeal for the game was so great that people got in.

“We had so many college coaches there and family members there, and then students around the state found ways to screenshot the ticket and our people at the gate didn’t have any experience using this (online ticketing) system, so the next thing you know, I mean, it wasn’t full, but that’s only because it wasn’t supposed to be.”

Jaelen Jackson, South Portland junior guard: “That’s the craziest I’ve ever seen that gym. Regardless of preseason, regular season, playoffs … that’s the most people I’ve ever seen in there.”

Millington: “The very first possession, we got the ball, we zipped it around to JP and JP found Nolan Hobbs — he’s playing baseball and football at Bates (College), so we’re not talking about a bad athlete here — he got the ball underneath the basket. I thought, ‘OK, we’re up 2-0.’ And then no, boom, off the backboard. Like, ‘O.K., that’s different.’”

Jackson: “It was back and forth all game.”

4th Quarter, Nokomis 48, South Portland 48, six seconds remaining

Millington: “We kind of stripped (Cooper) and got the ball, and the two players going down on that 2-on-1 were Owen Maloney, who is an all-state player and Jaelen Jackson, who’s an all-state player, and I thought we just won the game.”

Jackson: “I was like ‘This is wraps,’ because I was right at the rim. It was right there. But (Cooper) came out of nowhere and sent it. It was low key a ‘blocked by James’ moment. … I wasn’t ready for that.”

Millington: “Then it went into double overtime and I remember thinking, ‘I don’t want this to go to a third overtime because I’m exhausted,’ and I haven’t played one second of the game.

“I’ve probably talked about (that game) 20 times since the season started, some of it brought up by me. People still talk about it. I watched a little clip today. It just still strikes me that, you know, that kid’s playing at Duke and that kid’s playing at Tennessee and they’re in our gym as a freshman and junior just a couple years ago.”

FINAL: Nokomis 63, South Portland 56 (2 OT)

The regular season

Dec. 17, Nokomis at Brewer

Brady Saunders, Brewer junior guard: “Obviously, a lot of our attention was around Cooper. … We tried to use the fact that he was a freshman to our advantage. … It was early in the season, Cooper hadn’t really adjusted to high school basketball. So the first time around, we were just trying to use physicality and and pace of play to really kind of outsmart them, and it worked in that game.”

FINAL: Brewer 57, Nokomis 46

Cooper Flagg: 16 points, 4 assists, 4 blocks

Dec. 29, Nokomis at Messalonskee

Dangler: “At home it seemed like an away game, because we had so many people from the surrounding communities: Lawrence, Skowhegan, Waterville that came in.

“We had a freshman, Merrick Smith, who at the time was probably about 6-5 and then we had another about 6-7 kid, so we had the matchups there size wise. Game one, we kind of went in as, ‘Hey, let’s just play them straight up. Maybe we’ll double Cooper, but let’s just see how it goes for us.’”

Halftime: Nokomis 36, Messalonksee 25

Dangler: “I’m not going to tell the guys this, but I’m thinking in my head, there’s no chance. … All I’m thinking is ‘This is Nokomis. This is what they have the ability to do at any given moment.’ It’s always, ‘Weather the storm,’ but when the storms are that big, it’s hard to overcome them.”

FINAL: Nokomis 64, Messalonskee 45

Cooper Flagg: 26 points

Jan. 4, Nokomis vs. Lawrence

Pellerin: “We were concerned with their height in a half-court game. So we thought, ‘Geez, if we’re able to get him to at least feel us coming up the court, you know, that might slow him down.’

“Offensively, we ran some sets to try to slow the game down a little bit, because if they got too many opportunities, it was going to be a long night. It ended up being a long night anyways. I think there were five dunks by (junior guard) Madden White and three or four by Cooper and they beat us by 40, which happened to be my 50th birthday. So I’ll never forget that.”

FINAL: Nokomis 68, Lawrence 25

Cooper Flagg: 15 points; Ace Flagg: 15 points; Madden White: 14 points

Jan. 8, Nokomis at Cony

Maines: “We played them in January at our place. That was an interesting game in that we were down and then I think we outscored them 30-3 between the end of the first quarter and the second quarter. So we’re up (five) at halftime … and in our student section, these idiots were chanting, ‘Overrated!’ Because Cooper didn’t play very well. So we came out of the half and my assistants and I were like, ‘Geez, man, we played great. Well, hopefully we keep it up.’

“We got outscored 32-3 in the third quarter and I think Cooper had 22 points.”

FINAL: Nokomis 80, Cony 53

Cooper Flagg: 32 points, 13 rebounds; Ace Flagg: 18 points

Jan. 20, Nokomis vs. Brewer

Saunders: “They kicked our (butts) at their place. I think a lot of what changed is Cooper had a whole month or two months to adjust to the game. So obviously he was doing better. We sort of felt complacent, like, ‘We had beat them before, we’re just going to come in here and do the same thing.’ But obviously that’s not how the game went. (Nokomis) got up on us big and then they just stepped on our throats.”

FINAL: Nokomis 72, Brewer 43

Cooper Flagg: 30 points, 10 rebounds

Jan. 25, Nokomis vs. Cony

Maines: “I got a technical (foul) in the first quarter, so my butt was on the bench. I was psyched at how we played, but Ace made a couple of plays and then (sophomore guard Alex) Grant hit two huge 3s and (sophomore guard) Connor Sides made a play late in the game. Cooper probably still had 25 (points) or something, but he didn’t have to make the huge plays at the end.

“There’s not a lot you can do, Cooper is going to offensive rebound and Ace, they offensive rebound so well. You can have a great defensive stop, but if you don’t wrap it up with a rebound, they get that second-chance point.

“It’s a little deflating. And I think that happened quite a bit with him.”

FINAL: Nokomis 78, Cony 50

Cooper Flagg: 26 points, 17 rebounds; Connor Sides: 18 points

Feb. 5, Nokomis at Lawrence

Pellerin: “So we’re going up over the stairs and the last thing I said to the guys is, ‘Hey, don’t be upset if he dunks on you. He dunks on everybody. So just take the ball out, it’s still two points. It’s a layup or pull-up jump shot.

“He literally comes down, we get a defensive rebound, but the ball bounces out of our hands. He gets it. It’s a one-step dunk. That was the first possession. I turned to my bench. I said, ‘Well, at least we got the dunk out of the way.’”

“We ran some out-of-bounds plays perfectly. And our guy looks like he’s got the layup, (it’s) probably our best leaper at the rim and does a finger-roll and Cooper comes in and just erases it from the weak side. And he was at the top of the box on the backboard, and I was just like, ‘What are we supposed to do?’ We couldn’t have executed that play any better.”

FINAL: Nokomis 63, Lawrence 33

Cooper Flagg: 16 points

Feb. 8, Nokomis vs. Messalonskee

Dangler: “We got into some things defensively a little different in the game at Nokomis. And Cooper, as a freshman, 15 years old, takes the ball, dribbles it out to half court, passes it, gets it back and calls out what we’re running, right there on the spot.

“It was like, ‘Wow.’ For a 15-year-old to be able to do that, it was pretty impressive. And that was a moment, because he was standing right next to me at the time, where I was like, ‘His IQ is just off the charts.’”

FINAL: Nokomis 70, Messalonskee 45

Ace Flagg: 16 points; Cooper Flagg: 13 points

Nokomis finished the regular season 17-1. The Warriors entered the Class A Tournament as the No. 1 seed in the North Region, riding a 16-game win streak with an average margin of victory of 27 points.

The state tournament

Class A North Quarterfinal: Feb. 19, Nokomis vs. Messalonskee

Dangler “Our game plan was: Let’s get the ball out of Cooper’s hands because we know what he does with the ball offensively as far as being able to score it and we know how he can facilitate. Let’s take Ace out of the equation and make sure we’re doubling him any time he catches down on the block, short corner and let Madden White beat us. Unfortunately Madden hit I think four 3s in the game and we couldn’t score.

“I think a lot of people around here just talk about Cooper, but Ace and the surrounding cast were just as important.”

Jarod Richmond, NFHS and WHOU.live play-by-play commentator: “At the end of the quarterfinal game, I had the line in the postgame show, ‘If you came here tonight to see The Flagg twins, what you really saw was the fully operational Death Star that is the Nokomis basketball team.’”

FINAL: Nokomis 57, Messalonskee 29

Cooper Flagg: 13 points, 10 rebounds, 11 assists, 5 blocks; Ace Flagg: 12 points, 6 rebounds; Madden White: 26 points

Class A North Semifinal: Feb. 23, Nokomis vs. Cony

Maines: “All the pressure was on them, right? It’s not on us. They have this burden of, before they even started the regular season, people are already talking, like, (Cooper and Ace) are going to prep school, they’re one-and-done in Maine high school basketball. They want to win this first state championship.

“We’re like, ‘just keep Cooper between you and the basket, so you have one player (on him), but then try to play underneath as well to make sure there were two of them at all times.’ And that worked out well. I think Cooper might have had six points at halftime.”

Halftime: Nokomis 19, Cony 25

Maines: “In the third quarter, we missed some bunnies. They made a couple of plays and we’re down one going into the fourth. And then in the early fourth quarter, Cooper made a 3, he had a couple of buckets, had a put-back, but the bigger thing was on the defensive end.

“It just was like, ‘G-- d--- it.’ He’s everywhere. Like he had the weak side help block on the backboard, blocked a three, a tipped ball in a passing lane. I can still picture it because he had that frigging clap and that mean mug face and it’s just like, ‘G-- d--- it.’”

FINAL: Nokomis 51, Cony 35

Cooper Flagg: 22 points, 14 rebounds, 4 blocks

Class A North Regional Final: Feb. 26, Nokomis vs. Brewer

Richmond: “Brewer opened up on a 10-2 run. I think that was the only time in the entire tournament that first quarter and a half where you could kind of see some of the nerves on (Nokomis).

“There was a really hard screen set early in the game. Brewer was like, ‘We’re going to be physical. We’re going to see if you can play physical basketball.’”

Saunders: “We all believed that we could beat them again. We were all just really excited, our emotions were flowing and we all started playing well because of that.”

Halftime: Nokomis 21, Brewer 19

Brandon Terrill, WHOU.live and PBS color commentator: “At halftime it was really close, and I remember some whispers around the (Augusta) Civic Center that the Flagg twins are freshmen and they’re not going to be able to deal with this upperclassmen-laden Brewer team and they lost to them once already and now they have their number.

“And then (Nokomis) came out and put the smack-down with a run in the third quarter and put all that to bed.”

End of Third Quarter: Nokomis 49, Brewer 32

Terrill: “I just remember it being an unstoppable avalanche once they got it rolling downhill. Brewer had enough strength and athleticism to make (Cooper) uncomfortable in the first half and try to push him around a little. But he seemed to just figure that out in the second half and once they got it rolling downhill Brewer couldn’t make enough shots to hang with them.”

Richmond: “I remember the last dunk (Cooper) had was a baseline dunk. He just had the ball in the corner and did a little hesitation and was at the rim and hanging off of it (in) a lightning flash.

“I said something to the effect of ‘And there’s the exclamation point on the tournament for Cooper Flagg.’ … Brewer did a phenomenal job, but there was just too much Nokomis.”

FINAL: Nokomis 68, Brewer 58

Cooper Flagg: 27 points, 11 rebounds, 5 assists, 5 steals, 3 blocks; Ace Flagg: 13 points, 10 rebounds

Class A State Championship: March 5, Nokomis vs. Falmouth

Judd Armstrong, Falmouth junior forward: “We always kind of thought in the back of our mind, it could be us versus them in the championship. We kind of were thinking about that the whole season because we knew we had a great team as well.”

Terrill: “Going into the game, a big question was experience. You had Nokomis on one hand with outstanding freshmen, 15-year-old freshmen who had obviously never been down in Portland for the big game … and then on the other side you had Falmouth who had been there like every year.”

Armstrong: “(With) Cooper and Ace, they had great size on that team. They rebounded a lot, they took charges when it mattered. I’d say, defensively, they were a hard team to score on.”

Halftime: Nokomis 19, Falmouth 12; Field Goals: Nokomis 7-22 (32%), Falmouth 5-21 (24%); Cooper Flagg: 14 points, 9 rebounds

Armstrong: “We didn’t change many plays (coming out of the half). I think for us it was just making sure we play good defense and maybe taking better shots. A lot of our shots weren’t falling. So it made me realize we had to get some easier shots, high-percentage shots.”

Terrill: “Falmouth just couldn’t do anything. They couldn’t even run their typical half-court offense. I remember how far away from the basket Nokomis kept forcing them to try to even execute their offense and try to pass the ball around.

“Cooper just made the court look like it was too small for him. He looked like one of those big fifth-graders playing on a little rec league court crossways in the gym. Just his length and athleticism, he could cover the entire paint, he could go from the paint to the 3-point line in one step. There was just no space on the court for Falmouth to operate.”

Pellerin: “I left there and I called my old high school coach, Mike McGee, hall of fame coach, hall of fame player. Great defensive coach here at Lawrence. And I said, ‘Coach, with all due respect, I just watched the best half-court defensive team I’ve ever seen.’ And I said, ‘It’s because they’ve got two guys that don’t close out to the ball. They close out to airspace like nobody we’ve ever seen.’

“I don’t know what I thought about what (Cooper) could become. I know what he was in the state of Maine his freshman year, and that is the best high school basketball player I had ever laid my eyes on. And I didn’t have a problem saying that with anybody.”

FINAL: Nokomis 43, Falmouth 27

Cooper Flagg: 22 points, 16 rebounds

About the author: Cameron Levasseur is a graduate student in the journalism program at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, and a Mapleton, Maine native.

This story was originally published April 2, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Early dominance: An oral history of Duke star Cooper Flagg’s rise to prominence in Maine."