The Duke Blue Devils (16-2, 8-0 ACC) are coming off an 88-63 road win at Boston College (9-9, 1-6 ACC) to extend the team's winning streak to 12 games.
Ahead of the Blue Devils' matchup with the Eagles, Duke head coach Jon Scheyer along with a few of the team's players, including freshmen Cooper Flagg and Kon Knueppel, headed to TD Garden to watch the Boston Celtics take on the Orlando Magic, featuring Blue Devils and now NBA stars Jayson Tatum and Paolo Banchero, who Scheyer coached as an assistant.
During the game, Scheyer took a courtside interview with NBC Boston's Abby Chin to discuss both Flagg's phenomenal freshman season and Tatum's career in the NBA so far.
Chin asked Scheyer about a former NBA player and current NBC Sports Boston analyst, Brian Scalabrine, who claims he was the first to tell Scheyer about Flagg's game at a young age.
Scalabrine played in the NBA from 2001-12 for three different teams, including 5 seasons with the Celtics. He says he told Scheyer about Flagg's elite game when Flagg was just 14 years old.
Here's what Scheyer had to say:
"Well it's hard for me to give 'Scal' credit," Scheyer said jokingly. "But I have to in this case. He gave the assist for sure. I thought he was crazy when he was talking about this kid from Maine that could really play and I told him 'sure, like I'm sure he can.' And, it's one of the best calls I've ever gotten."
Scheyer has been a recruiting mastermind since becoming the head coach of the Blue Devils, and was right once again to listen to Scalabrine in this case.
As a freshman, Flagg is currently the National Player of the Year frontrunner 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% from three point range.
He's also leading Duke in all 5 major statistical categories.
Scalabrine knew from early on Flagg was something special, and it's fortunate he got in contact with Scheyer so he and the rest of his staff could reel him in to Durham.
Duke plays next at Wake Forest (14-4, 6-1 ACC) for a true road test on January 25th (4:30pm, ESPN).