To cap off the 2024-25 season, The Chronicle is highlighting Duke's most impressive athletes from across the year in a column series. Three Blue Devils earned top honors, but several others made an All-Duke First Team and Second Team. Together, they put together a year best characterized by its outstanding defense.

Cooper Flagg was the best college basketball player in the country this year. What more is there to say?

I could write about him winning ACC Rookie and Player of the Year and finishing second in Defensive Player of the Year voting. I could write about the Newport, Maine, native bringing home the Wooden and Naismith Awards or I could mention that the 18-year-old was the second-youngest player to be drafted No. 1 overall since LeBron James.

He earned every ounce of the numerous trophies he ended the season with, averaging 19.2 points per game on 48.1/38.5/84 shooting splits and leading the Blue Devils in total rebounds, assists and steals while finishing one block behind fellow top-10 pick Khaman Maluach.

But none of Flagg’s stats or accolades do justice to the impact he had at Duke this year. A life-sized cardboard cutout of him in someone’s window welcomed students back to campus on the first day of school in August — before he played a single collegiate game — and said goodbye to them in early May. 

The phenom led a team with so much fan appeal that over two-fifths of the undergraduate population crammed into the Duke Basketball Museum to take a test to watch him play. His explosive plays went viral a number of times, and he rose above the already-prestigious Duke basketball brand to become his own force in the sports landscape. 

Flagg was a larger-than-life figure, on both the court and campus, and that’s why he is the Blue Devil of the Year.

The graduate student set an ACC record with his indoor championship-winning vault, flying 5.71 meters above the ground to bring home the gold. Despite not having the highest personal best of the final vaulters, the Ski, Norway, native was the only competitor of the four finalists to clear the bar, earning Duke its sole national gold medal of the academic year.

Guttormsen was an integral part of Duke men’s track & field’s first ACC Championship in program history, comfortably taking home the gold to score critical points for his team. In a one-of-a-kind year for Duke men’s track & field, he had a year to remember of his own.

Coming back for a fifth season with Duke women’s soccer after a suboptimal senior year, Maggie Graham flipped a switch. 

In her fourth year with the team, she took a step back from her four-goal, six-assist junior campaign to only notch one of each. In her undergraduate career on the whole, the Atlanta native scored a combined eight goals in 50 starts. 

However, as a graduate student and second-year captain, Graham became a whole different player. When star forward Kat Rader went down with an ankle injury in the fifth game of the season, the Blue Devils needed someone to step up and pick up the offensive role vacated by Rader.

Graham did so with aplomb, scoring 14 goals and dishing out five assists en route to being named the ACC Midfielder of the Year, as well as an All-ACC First Team selection. She also scored the game-winning goal against North Carolina to deliver the Blue Devils their first-ever road victory against the Tar Heels.

On top of her conference accolades, Graham was named one of three finalists for the MAC Hermann award, given to the best collegiate soccer player every season.

Graham’s outstanding year led Duke to an outstanding regular season in which the team earned the No. 1-overall seed in the NCAA Tournament before eventually falling to North Carolina in the semifinals.