Duke basketball freshman phenom Cooper Flagg has been dropping jaws since he stepped on a collegiate court for the first time, coming into college basketball as one of the most hyped up recruits of the last decade.
Flagg has been playing like one of the best players, if not the best player in the country all season long, averaging 19.2 points, 8.1 rebounds, 4.1 assists, 1.2 blocks, and 1.6 steals a game on 48.8% shooting from the field and 34.8% shooting from three point range, leading Duke in all five major statistical categories.
He's also won the ACC Rookie of the Week award seven times already.
But this one day for Flagg changed his game, as he's elevated in all facets since: his 18th birthday on December 21st.
Many forget that Flagg came into his freshman year of college at 17 years old and still dominated on both sides of the floor. Yet since turning 18, his scoring has only gotten better.
Before December 21st, Flagg averaged 16.6 points on 41.8% shooting from the field and a mere 24.4% from three point range. This was the team's first eleven games of the season.
In Duke's seven games since the star has turned 18 years of age, Flagg is averaging 23.3 points per game on a ridiculous 60.9% shooting clip and a huge jump to 52% from three point range while taking an average of 3.6 attempts a game over that span.
Four of those seven games showed Flagg scoring at least 24 points including a 42-point effort against Notre Dame to set an all-time ACC rookie scoring record.
In Duke's first eleven games, Flagg eclipsed 20-point scoring outputs five times.
Through this span after turning 18 years old, Flagg has also established himself as the National Player of the Year frontrunner with +190 odds per Sportsbook Review. Though, this is in part due to former NPOY frontrunner, Auburn's Johni Broome, going down with a severe ankle sprain two weeks ago to sideline him.
Flagg has been putting up video game numbers since his 18th birthday and has catapulted his game into making the discussion pretty difficult to say he's not the best player in all of college basketball right now.
Flagg and the rest of the Blue Devils (16-2, 8-0 ACC) are up next at Wake Forest (14-4, 6-1 ACC) on January 25th (4:30pm ET, ESPN).