Duke Twitter account trolls ACC for picking Chucky Hepburn over Cooper Flagg for Defensive Player of the Year

Duke took a shot at the ACC via social media on Monday after it was announced that Louisville guard Chucky Hepburn had won the league’s Defensive Player of the Year. Hepburn received 32 votes while Blue Devils wing Cooper Flagg was right behind him with 26.

Shortly after it was revealed Hepburn won, Duke took to X, formerly Twitter with a troll for the conference.

“A friend asked, with all due respect to the great defenders across the league, if this was the computer used to compile stats/research for ACC DPOTY considerations this year,” they wrote alongside a photo of an old computer.

a friend asked, with all due respect to the great defenders across the league, if this was the computer used to compile stats/research for ACC DPOTY considerations this year pic.twitter.com/EEpBl66xVx

— Duke Men’s Basketball (@DukeMBB) March 10, 2025

Although Flagg fell short at winning DPOTY, he won the Player of the Year Award in a landslide. The freshman phenom received 76 votes for that honor while the next closest player was Maxime Raynaud of Stanford with a mere four.

Flagg averaged 19.4 points, 7.6 rebounds and 4.2 assists during the regular season as Duke finished with a 28-3 record. He also averaged 1.5 steals and 1.3 blocks per game and his defensive rating of 87.3 was the best of any player in the ACC.

By comparison, Hepburn was the league leader in steals per game with 2.4. However, his 97.7 defensive rating is much higher than that of Flagg, showing that the latter is more impactful for his team on defense.

It’s possible that the votes fell how they did because Flagg had already won the Player of the Year and Freshman of the Year awards. Perhaps the ACC wanted to be a bit more inclusive and give another player recognition, despite there being plenty of statistical evidence in Flagg’s favor.

Cooper Flagg not getting Defensive Player of the Year wasn’t the only snub that Duke felt it faced in the ACC end of season awards, however. The Blue Devils also posted earlier in the day that they believed Jon Scheyer should have won Coach of the Year instead of Louisville’s Pat Kelsey.

“Haven’t seen a coach snubbed for ACC COTY like this since Coach K didn’t win it once over his final 22 seasons, which included 3 national titles, 10 ACC Tourney titles, 5 ACC RS titles and 11 30-win seasons,” the tweet read.

Regardless of the individual awards, though, Duke still finished No. 1 in the ACC standings to earn the top seed in the ACC Tournament. That will begin Tuesday in Charlotte where Flagg and the others will have a chance to prove the voters wrong on the court.