Defense, depth drive Duke basketball past Alabama, into NCAA Tournament Final Four
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2025 NCAA Tournament
The latest results, news, notes and analysis from the 2025 NCAA Tournament.
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Playing the game they were built to win, the Duke Blue Devils led from start to finish Saturday night to subdue Alabama and earn a trip to the Final Four.
Kon Knueppel scored 20 points and Cooper Flagg tallied 16 more with nine rebounds as top-seeded Duke shut down second-seeded Alabama’s potent offense to post a convincing 85-65 win in the NCAA Tournament East Regional final at Prudential Center.
Heading to the Final Four for the 18th time in program history but the first time under third-year head coach Jon Scheyer, Duke (35-3) advances to play the Midwest Regional champion, either top seed Houston or No. 2 seed Tennessee, on Saturday in the national semifinals at San Antonio’s Alamodome.
Having lost in the Elite Eight round a year ago, the Blue Devils left little room for worry this year to return to the Final Four for the second time in the past four seasons.
The Blue Devils shot 53.6%, with Tyrese Proctor scoring 17 points and Khaman Maluach 14 to join Knueppel and Flagg in double figures, as they ran their winning streak to 15 games.
“I think Tyrese and I,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said, “the feeling of losing last year at this point, every decision we made, everything we did was to get back here and then have the team have the opportunity to advance to the promised land. To go to San Antonio, to go to the Final Four.”
After setting an NCAA Tournament record with 25 3-pointers in its 113-88 win over BYU on Thursday night, Alabama (28-9) made just 23 of 65 shots (35.4%) against Duke’s stingy defense. The Crimson Tide finished eight of 32 (25%) on 3-pointers.
Mark Sears, who hit 10 3-pointers while scoring 34 points against BYU, was 2 of 12 while scoring six points against Duke.
“The big thing for him was showing them bodies,” Duke graduate student guard Sion James said, “making sure whoever was guarding the ball knew they weren’t on an island by themselves and making sure Sears knew that he wasn’t on an island with our big or whoever else. And I think we did a good job for the most part of keeping him off the foul line where he gets a lot of his points from.”
Duke led 46-37 at halftime and never saw its lead fall below six points in the second half. That didn’t mean the back of the game was without drama.
The Blue Devils struggled offensively over the first 10 minutes after halftime, hitting only 7 of 17 shots and missing all three 3-pointers. Alabama fought back to trail 65-58 when Labaron Philbon sank two free throws with 8:03 to play.
But Duke responded with a 13-0 run to pull away for good.
Flagg dribbled the shot clock down before making a move to the basket and hitting a baseline jumper. After two Alabama misses at the other end, Maluach gathered a loose ball under Duke’s basket and scored with 6:49 to play and pushed Duke’s lead back to double digits at 69-58.
James hit one free throw before Knueppel’s two free throws at 5:06 gave Duke a 72-59 lead. Alabama kept stacking empty possessions and Duke eventually pushed its lead to 78-58 before running out the clock.
“We have multiple weapons,” Scheyer said, “and different teams play us different ways. So depending on matchups, depending on the coverages we’re seeing, for me, I feel very confident. Obviously there’s a three-headed monster with Cooper, Kon and Tyrese. Sion is such a connector, Khaman is such a connector for us, as well.
“But to have their — the different actions we ran for each of them — I think with Kon, his versatility is huge for us, and his size. He’s able to pass. He’s able to finish. You feel he’s always going to get off a good look because he has great pivots in the paint and great patience.”
With Flagg making a 3-pointer to start the scoring, and Duke hitting five of its first six shots, the Blue Devils never trailed and needed fewer than five minutes of play to open a 10-point lead.
Behind Knueppel’s 11 first-half points and 10 from Flagg, Duke led by as many as 13 before taking a 46-37 lead to intermission.
After that opening flurry, Alabama fought back and trimmed Duke’s lead to 23-19 with 11:17 remaining in the half on two Clifford Omoruyi free throws.
Duke, though, responded with a 12-3 run over the next four minutes. Knueppel started it by feeding Maluach for a basket at the rim. Knueppel’s 3-pointer, followed by his layup and free throw on a conventional three-point play put Duke in front 33-22. Flagg’s lay-in at the 6:48 mark extended Duke’s lead to 35-22.
At that point, Alabama had made just 7 of 22 shots (31.8%), including 4 of 14 3-pointers, while committing six turnovers.
The Crimson Tide found some offense to began a climb back, slicing Duke’s lead to 37-31 on Grant Nelson’s slam dunk at 3:34.
But the Blue Devils, sensing this could be an inflection point in the game, answered with a big play when Maliq Brown battled and controlled the rebound off a Flagg miss. Brown tossed the ball out to Caleb Foster, who drilled a 3-pointer at 3:06, pushing Duke’s lead back to 40-31.
Another key sequence occurred when Flagg found a seam through Alabama’s momentarily confused defense to get to the rim and score with 16.1 seconds left. Flagg was fouled and added a free throw for a 46-35 Duke lead.
This story was originally published March 29, 2025 at 11:20 PM with the headline "Defense, depth drive Duke basketball past Alabama, into NCAA Tournament Final Four."
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