The Champions Classic was so close to the full coronation of 17-year-old Duke Blue Devils sensation Cooper Flagg.

For the first 39 minutes and 30 seconds of Flagg’s first major college game, he was nothing short of fantastic. He put NBA move after NBA move on film, chasing mismatches, sinking tough midrange buckets and dominating the backboards. A better debut on the national stage could not have been written.

And then the script fell apart in spectacular fashion in that last half minute.

Flagg retrieved the ball out of a Duke timeout in a tied game and had it ripped away by Kentucky Wildcats wing Otega Oweh, who ran the floor and drew a foul. And after the two free throws gave Kentucky the lead, Flagg pushed the ball down the floor but soon found himself in no man’s land, eventually sliding out of bounds to give Kentucky possession with five seconds left.

Suddenly, “he’s only 17” took on a different meaning in the story of the bluebloods’ epic showdown on Tuesday.

There are no fewer than a dozen tactical decisions from both coaches that can be analyzed in depth, from Mark Pope going small with Andrew Carr in the middle to Jon Scheyer’s end-of-match designs and many more in between. But sometimes college basketball can be simplified into an analysis that any casual observer can make, and this result rings true: Kentucky’s roster is as old as Duke’s is young.

Of Kentucky’s top eight minutes makers in Tuesday’s game, six were “super seniors” and none were freshmen. The top scorer, Carr, is less than three months away from his 23rd birthday. Meanwhile, Duke relied on two freshmen, Flagg and 19-year-old Kon Knueppel, for 39 of 71 field goals and 40 of 72 points. A third freshman, Khaman Maluach (who is only 18) was the Blue Devils’ key player alongside Flagg, but saw his contributions limited in the second half by cramps… an unfortunate trend for the Blue Devils attributed by Scheyer after the game to “young bodies.” Kentucky’s roster may be new to its uniform and lacking scholarships from the John Calipari era, but the Wildcats are certainly not new to college basketball. That experience was reflected in both teams’ first real test of the 2024-2025 season.

“The guys do most of the (halftime) repairs before I even get into the locker room,” Pope said. That’s not a common luxury in college basketball, but it could end up being one of the Wildcats’ biggest advantages.

Pope inherited everything and nothing when he stepped into Calipari’s shoes last April. He had a deep understanding of the passion that makes Kentucky the sport’s biggest pressure cooker, but walked into a locker room without a roster. He built a hodgepodge of transfers, with previous stops in the starting lineup at Oklahoma, San Diego State, BYU, Wake Forest and Drexel. Amazingly, only one of those starters (Jaxson Robinson, who followed Pope from BYU) had led his team in scoring the previous season. The edict was clear: Pope was building one teaminstead of a Calipari-esque collection of talent known to underperform in March.

There are downsides to that strategy, and for much of Tuesday it felt like we were seeing them. Kentucky trailed at 8:30 and was pounded on the interior by Duke, who was outscored 28-6 in the paint at halftime. There was another boot: As explosive as Kentucky may look against Wright State or Bucknell, elite talent is the dividing line in high-level games like this, and Duke already had the elite talent. The game teetered toward complete Duke control, but the young Devils were never able to fully capitalize.

One memorable sequence came midway through the second half when Flagg missed a pair of free throws with a chance to push the lead to double digits. Less than two minutes later, Kentucky regained possession on a three by Koby Brea (after his defenseman Sion James went down with an injury midway through the game) and a three-point play by Lamont Butler. The Wildcats led for less than 20% of the game, but the Wildcats were nothing if not opportunistic as they put more and more playing pressure on Duke as they went along.

“(Kentucky) showed incredible maturity,” Scheyer said. “Their experience came through in that second half, without a doubt.”

Championships aren’t won in November, and nowhere is that more true than in Kentucky. Pope, who still doesn’t have an NCAA tournament win on his resume, has a lot more to prove than winning Champions Classic matches. But you couldn’t have made a better first big impression for the broader college basketball universe. You might not find a great coach in college sports with less ego than Pope, always one to deflect credit. He had Carr deliver the opening statement for the media postgame and sat there listening with a grin on his face, and later demonstrated his masterful understanding of the intricacies of the British course when he talked about savoring the moment on the floor after the game.

“If Andrew has to carry the burden of this happening around him, it’s too much,” Pope said. “If Otega has to carry the burden of this being around him, it’s too much, and actually not very rewarding. When the time can be usthen it’s magic. That’s the gospel. That’s life. This team has really taken that on… It’s all (Big Blue Nation) showing up. It’s something brilliant, and we’ll be in the best place in the world to do it.”

That answer, that approach, had to be as much what athletic director Mitch Barnhart was betting on when he put the program’s future on the line, as Pope’s brilliant offensive concepts or BYU’s impressive early Big 12 results. The uniforms look the same, but that’s where the similarities to Pope’s predecessor’s program end, and that couldn’t have been more apparent in his first big moment as leader of Big Blue Nation on Tuesday night.

And as for that Flagg coronation? It’s definitely coming, and we shouldn’t pass up a 26-point, 12-rebound masterclass as normal, even if it might be for this teenage prodigy. That said, Tuesday’s show should at least slow down the raging hype machine surrounding this youthful Duke group. Blue Devils legend Jay Williams compared this season’s Duke team to the great Devils of 2001 during halftime of a game Duke didn’t even win. The Flagg/Knueppel/Maluach trio is a special trio with the ceiling for a national championship, but the work is far from done to get this team there.

The Blue Devils’ guard play wasn’t nearly good enough on Tuesday: Tyrese Proctor was quiet late after a big first half, while Caleb Foster had just four points on 2-of-9 shooting, representing a poor overall performance for the sophomore point guard. Nor was the three-point shooting, with Knueppel an uncharacteristic 1-for-8 from deep and Duke as a team just 4-for-23. Throwing the ball to Flagg late in the game will likely be a winning strategy more often than not, but none of these endgame possessions were the ideal way to maximize his strengths. If anything, they felt like a desperate plea for Flagg to save the rest of the roster.

But there will be plenty more opportunities to nitpick this Duke team. This is due to the great expectations that this group has on its back. In the meantime, what could easily have been a night for Flagg instead will be defined by a collective effort in Kentucky. It may start with the team’s folksy head coach, but success in Lexington this season will be determined by collective efforts like Tuesday’s.