Duke star Cooper Flagg wins Naismith Trophy
One day earlier, Flagg won the Wooden Award.
Flagg became just the fourth freshman to win the Naismith Trophy, which is presented by the Atlanta Tipoff Club. The others are Texas' Kevin Durant (2007), Kentucky's Anthony Davis (2012) and Duke's Zion Williamson (2019).
The same quartet are the only freshmen to win the Wooden Award.
Flagg's latest award was announced in San Antonio, one day after the Blue Devils lost 70-67 to Houston in the Final Four.
"This is an incredible honor and I am truly grateful for the recognition," Flagg said. "This whole year, this (NCAA) tournament, has gone by so fast. It's been a blur and an incredible year. I have to give a lot of credit to my teammates, Coach (Jon) Scheyer, the rest of the staff and everyone who had me ready to go every single night. They believed in me and let me be me out there on the court."
Flagg emerged as the favorite for the award over the second half of the season. He averaged 19.2 points, 7.5 rebounds and 4.2 assists in 37 games.
The other finalists were Auburn's Johni Broome, Florida's Walter Clayton Jr. and Purdue's Braden Smith.
Among Flagg's other accolades are being named Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year as well as being a consensus first-team All-American.
Flagg is expected to be the No. 1 choice in the NBA draft if he chooses to enter his name.
Rick Pitino was named the Werner Ladder Coach of the Year award after leading St. John's to a 31-5 record in his second season at the school.
The 31 wins matched the school mark reached twice in the mid-1980s.
The Red Storm received a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament before exiting in the second round with a loss to Arkansas. The first-round victory over Omaha was the school's first NCAA tourney win since 2000.
"I'm truly honored to be the recipient of the Werner Ladder Naismith Coach of the Year award, especially with the incredible coaching of the other finalists this past season," the 72-year-old Pitino said. "I want to thank my players and coaches for making this possible after a historic season for St. John's Basketball. I am also grateful to the Atlanta Tipoff Club and the Naismith Awards selection committee for this prestigious honor."
The other finalists were Auburn's Bruce Pearl, Houston's Kelvin Sampson and Scheyer.
Creighton center Ryan Kalkbrenner won Naismith Defensive Player of the Year honors. The senior blocked 93 shots this season while winning Big East Defensive Player of the Year honors for the fourth straight season.
Kalkbrenner also averaged 19.2 points and 8.7 rebounds and shot 65.3 percent from the field this season.
"It is a huge honor to be named Naismith Defensive Player of the Year and I am most appreciative to my teammates, coaches and the Atlanta Tipoff Club for recognizing our success," Kalkbrenner said.
Houston's Joseph Tugler and two Tennessee players -- Jahmai Mashack and Zakai Zeigler -- were the other finalists.
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The Guardian
3 days ago
- The Guardian
The US national team lost regional superiority, but gained some World Cup hope
In the end, the status quo went unchanged. Mexico won its second consecutive Concacaf Gold Cup trophy in a heated final with the United States in Houston's NRG Stadium on Sunday. The oddly angular cup will be tucked into Mexico's federation trophy case next to El Tri's first Concacaf Nations League title, lifted in March. The program was unquestionably on top of Concacaf before the Gold Cup – now that it's over, they still are. If anything is changing, it's the momentum in Mexico's favor. The 2-1 victory over the United States men's national team was the first time the Mexicans vanquished their arch-rivals in six years – minus one day. Yet for the US, it feels like a fair few things have changed over the course of the last month, altering a projected 2026 World Cup roster quite substantially with 340 days to run and zero competitive games left. The USMNT stumbled into the Gold Cup on the back of a disastrous Nations League and a pair of all-too-simple defeats to Turkey and Switzerland on the eve of the tournament. Absent star forward Christian Pulisic and a raft of other stalwarts like Weston McKennie, Antonee Robinson, Sergiño Dest and basically any striker with a track record, expectations and enthusiasm had sagged to a low not seen in the better part of a decade. But on their way to the final, the US rediscovered the moxie and intensity it had misplaced more than a year ago. 'When you lose a trophy, it's really, really painful,' the US manager, Mauricio Pochettino, told reporters afterward, after lamenting what he saw as several suspect refereeing decisions that went against them. 'But the most important thing is to have our head up because I think the tournament was fantastic. We keep going, [this] is the way we want to build our journey to the World Cup. In this way, I have no doubt, we're going to be really, really competitive.' With what was in effect a B-team, the Americans found their fight and, along the way, a fair few players who may call into question the spots and roles of the men they filled in for. 'We found a very good group of players with the desire and the open mind to learn and to prove [themselves],' Pochettino said before the game. 'I need to say thank you to the players, because from day one they created an unbelievable atmosphere on the team – never one problem, never one issue between them.' This assessment stood in stark contrast to Pochettino's postmortem on the Nations League camp, when he accused the players of taking more interest in playing golf, going out for a meal or seeing family and friends than on performing on the field. This is where the roster watch gets interesting. Pochettino demonstrated throughout the Gold Cup that he's unmoved by players' pedigrees, starting NYCFC's Matt Freese in goal over Premier Leaguer Matt Turner and his 52 caps. Or relying on young and barely proven Major League Soccer players over Brenden Aaronson, who, like Turner, is a 2022 World Cup veteran and has his own half century of appearances. The Argentinian coach was entirely comfortable handing the keys to the likes of Diego Luna, the little-tested Real Salt Lake spitfire, and was repaid for his faith. If this Gold Cup squad was sort of an aberration of circumstance – Pulisic decided to rest; Robinson decided to get knee surgery; Dest wasn't fit; McKennie, Tim Weah and Gio Reyna were committed to the Club World Cup instead, and so on – something impressive grew in the void. 'There's been a lot of success this summer, how the team has grown,' said Chris Richards, who scored in the final and finally put one of the starting center-back positions in a headlock going forward. 'If you look at the overall theme of the whole camp, it's been a summer full of growth.' Tim Ream, the grizzled 37-year-old veteran defender and somehow very much a candidate for next summer's team, saw a spirit lost some time ago regained over the course of five weeks spent together. 'It was an opportunity to grow as players, to grow as people, to create a togetherness that we've maybe lacked in a lot of moments in the past six months to a year,' he said. Sign up to Soccer with Jonathan Wilson Jonathan Wilson brings expert analysis on the biggest stories from European soccer after newsletter promotion Certainly, the US was fairly dominated in yesterday's final. You might point out that Jorge Sánchez committed a clear handball in his own box (as Pochettino did) and that Mario Escobar's refereeing was shaky. But the Mexicans entirely deserved their title, and not just because the goals by Raúl Jiménez and Edson Álvarez were both pretty and well worked. While the US produced several scrambles in front of the Mexican goal through sheer stubbornness, their opponents were largely in control. Pochettino was perhaps too slow to react as El Tri tightened the screws on his overmatched team. Here's the glass-half-full view: Mexico competed with its A team, the squad likely to go to the World Cup. Yet the US gave them a good game before an overwhelmingly pro-Mexican crowd even without most of its attacking weapons. The abundance of joy and relief spilling from El Tri after its goals and on the final whistle was telling. Just over the course of this tournament, the US finally figured out how to utilize attacking midfielder Malik Tillman, witnessed the breakout of Luna, surprised all observers with the emergence of Sebastian Berhalter and Freese, and witnessed flashes of promise in forwards Patrick Agyemang and Damion Downs. You wouldn't blame for Pochettino for thinking of the core of this group as his full national team at present and resist the temptation to revert to the missing men. Certainly, this team is desperate for the forward thrust brought by Robinson and Dest, Pulisic's dribbling and a semi-reliable goalscorer. Yet Tillman clearly deserves a regular place, as does Luna. With in-form options in short supply, Freese may very well be the incumbent goalkeeper now. A few others so far on the outside a month ago that they could barely even see a path to the World Cup may well be in the mix. Pochettino, for his part, pushed back on the assumption that the absentees will walk right back into the team after the game. 'You already made the list?' he snapped back when a reporter asked him how he will reintegrate the likes of Pulisic, McKennie, etc. 'Or you asked artificial intelligence to do the roster for next time?' This Gold Cup, then, was an unexpectedly productive exercise. If nothing else, it put pressure on a band of national team players that was anointed and never questioned again. The US may have lost a trophy on Sunday, but it gained a new intensity to the competition for places. And that might be worth more at the World Cup. This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond (Jonathan Wilson himself is on vacation right now) Subscribe for free here. Have a question? Email soccerwithjw@ Leander Schaerlaeckens is at work on a book about the United States men's national soccer team, out in 2026. He teaches at Marist University.
The Guardian
3 days ago
- The Guardian
The US national team lost regional superiority, but gained some World Cup hope
In the end, the status quo went unchanged. Mexico won its second consecutive Concacaf Gold Cup trophy in a heated final with the United States in Houston's NRG Stadium on Sunday. The oddly angular cup will be tucked into Mexico's federation trophy case next to El Tri's first Concacaf Nations League title, lifted in March. The program was unquestionably on top of Concacaf before the Gold Cup – now that it's over, they still are. If anything is changing, it's the momentum in Mexico's favor. The 2-1 victory over the United States men's national team was the first time the Mexicans vanquished their arch-rivals in six years – minus one day. Yet for the US, it feels like a fair few things have changed over the course of the last month, altering a projected 2026 World Cup roster quite substantially with 340 days to run and zero competitive games left. The USMNT stumbled into the Gold Cup on the back of a disastrous Nations League and a pair of all-too-simple defeats to Turkey and Switzerland on the eve of the tournament. Absent star forward Christian Pulisic and a raft of other stalwarts like Weston McKennie, Antonee Robinson, Sergiño Dest and basically any striker with a track record, expectations and enthusiasm had sagged to a low not seen in the better part of a decade. But on their way to the final, the US rediscovered the moxie and intensity it had misplaced more than a year ago. 'When you lose a trophy, it's really, really painful,' the US manager, Mauricio Pochettino, told reporters afterward, after lamenting what he saw as several suspect refereeing decisions that went against them. 'But the most important thing is to have our head up because I think the tournament was fantastic. We keep going, [this] is the way we want to build our journey to the World Cup. In this way, I have no doubt, we're going to be really, really competitive.' With what was effectively a B-team, the Americans found their fight and, along the way, a fair few players who may call into question the spots and roles of the men they filled in for. 'We found a very good group of players with the desire and the open mind to learn and to prove [themselves],' Pochettino said before the game. 'I need to say thank you to the players, because from day one they created an unbelievable atmosphere on the team – never one problem, never one issue between them.' This assessment stood in stark contrast to Pochettino's postmortem on the Nations League camp, when he accused the players of taking more interest in playing golf, going out for a meal or seeing family and friends than on performing on the field. This is where the roster watch gets interesting. Pochettino demonstrated throughout the Gold Cup that he's unmoved by players' pedigrees, starting NYCFC's Matt Freese in goal over Premier Leaguer Matt Turner and his 52 caps. Or relying on young and barely-proven Major League Soccer players over Brenden Aaronson, who, like Turner, is a 2022 World Cup veteran and has his own half century of appearances. The Argentine coach was entirely comfortable handing the keys to the likes of Diego Luna, the little-tested Real Salt Lake spitfire, and was repaid for his faith. If this Gold Cup squad was sort of an aberration of circumstance – Pulisic decided to rest; Robinson decided to get knee surgery; Dest wasn't fit; McKennie, Tim Weah and Gio Reyna were committed to the Club World Cup instead, and so on – something impressive grew in the void. 'There's been a lot of success this summer, how the team has grown,' said Chris Richards, who scored in the final and finally put one of the starting center back positions in a headlock going forward. 'If you look at the overall theme of the whole camp, it's been a summer full of growth.' Tim Ream, the grizzled 37-year-old veteran defender and somehow very much a candidate for next summer's team, saw a spirit lost some time ago regained over the course of five weeks spent together. 'It was an opportunity to grow as players, to grow as people, to create a togetherness that we've maybe lacked in a lot of moments in the past six months to a year,' he said. Sign up to Soccer with Jonathan Wilson Jonathan Wilson brings expert analysis on the biggest stories from European soccer after newsletter promotion Certainly, the US was fairly dominated in yesterday's final. You might point out that Jorge Sánchez committed a clear handball in his own box (as Pochettino did) and that Mario Escobar's refereeing was shaky. But the Mexicans entirely deserved their title, and not just because the goals by Raúl Jiménez and Edson Álvarez were both pretty and well worked. While the US produced several scrambles in front of the Mexican goal through sheer stubbornness, their opponents were largely in control. Pochettino was perhaps too slow to react as El Tri tightened the screws on his overmatched team. Here's the glass-half-full view: Mexico competed with its A team, the squad likely to go to the World Cup. Yet the US gave them a good game before an overwhelmingly pro-Mexican crowd even without most of its attacking weapons. The abundance of joy and relief spilling from El Tri after its goals and on the final whistle was telling. Just over the course of this tournament, the US finally figured out how to utilize attacking midfielder Malik Tillman, witnessed the breakout of Luna, surprised all observers with the emergence of Sebastian Berhalter and Freese, and witnessed flashes of promise in forwards Patrick Agyemang and Damion Downs. You wouldn't blame for Pochettino for thinking of the core of this group as his full national team at present and resist the temptation to revert to the missing men. Certainly, this team is desperate for the forward thrust brought by Robinson and Dest, Pulisic's dribbling and a semi-reliable goal scorer. Yet Tillman clearly deserves a regular place, as does Luna. With in-form options in short supply, Freese may very well be the incumbent goalkeeper now. A few others so far on the outside a month ago that they could barely even see a path to the World Cup may well be in the mix going forward. Pochettino, for his part, pushed back on the assumption that the absentees will walk right back into the team after the game. 'You already made the list?' he snapped back when a reporter asked him how he will reintegrate the likes of Pulisic, McKennie, etc. 'Or you asked artificial intelligence to do the roster for next time?' This Gold Cup, then, was an unexpectedly productive exercise. If nothing else, it put pressure on a band of national team players that was anointed and never questioned again. The US may have lost a trophy on Sunday, but it gained a new intensity to the competition for places. And that might be worth more at the World Cup. This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond (Jonathan Wilson himself is on vacation right now) Subscribe for free here. Have a question? Email soccerwithjw@ Leander Schaerlaeckens is at work on a book about the United States men's national soccer team, out in 2026. He teaches at Marist University.
The Independent
3 days ago
- The Independent
Mauricio Pochettino fumes at ‘embarrassing' penalty decision in USA's Gold Cup final loss
United States manager Mauricio Pochettino has fumed over a a refereeing call that went against his team in their Gold Cup final defeat to Mexico. It looked a routine penalty call when Mexico defender Jorge Sanchez handled the ball inside his own penalty area with less than half an hour to go but the referee, Mario Escobar, thought otherwise. The United States went on to lose 2-1 to their closest rivals and Pochettino blasted the decision. "For me, it was embarrassing to see that situation,' the former Chelsea and Tottenham manager said. 'I understand that maybe with 70,000 people [in attendance], giving this penalty is not easy. '[But if it was given] maybe it's 2-1 for us, and maybe we now are celebrating with the trophy.' The United States had gone ahead early in Houston when defender Chris Richards' fourth minute header went past Mexican goalkeeper Luis Malagon and in off the underside of the crossbar. Mexico striker Raul Jimenez restored parity before the end of the first half. Then came the controversial non-penalty decision, after which the Mexico captain, Edson Alvarez, scored the winner. "I want to tell the truth," said Pochettino during his post-match press conference. "And the truth was that if that happened in the other box, for sure it's a penalty. The player [had] a knee on the floor. He pushed the hand over the ball. It's not that the hand was on the floor and the ball touched [Sanchez]. "If we lose, we lose. No problem. I am the first to say we need to improve. I am not crying. I'm not saying nothing against Mexico, nothing. I respect Mexico, full respect. And I congratulate them." United States skipper Tyler Adams agreed with his manager: "To me it looked like a handball. I mean, when you land on the ball and move the ball towards you, it's going to be a handball normally."
