Duke basketball forward Cooper Flagg / Maria Lysaker-USA TODAY Sports

CBS Sports' Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander recently asked over 100 Division I coaches, including assistants, which player will emerge as the best in college hoops next season. More than a third went with Duke basketball rookie Cooper Flagg, the Blue Devils' best chance at producing a Naismith Award winner since Zion Williamson snagged all of the national hardware as a 2018-19 freshman sensation in Durham before getting drafted No. 1 overall.

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The 36 percent of coaches favoring the 6-foot-9, 205-pound McDonald's All-American phenom forward from Maine is nearly equal to the combined total between the No. 2 vote-getter, Alabama's Mark Sears with 22 percent, and No. 3 on the list, Kansas' Hunter Dickinson with 16 percent.

UNC's RJ Davis, the reigning ACC Player of the Year, appears No. 4 in the eyes of the anonymous coaches with his 15 percent of the vote.

Here are a few of the anonymous quotes on Cooper Flagg:

Note that Sears, Dickinson, and Davis are gearing up for their graduate campaigns. Flagg is still four months from being old enough to vote, as the 17-year-old projected one-and-done is the youngest member of the 2024-25 Blue Devils.

As for how Jon Scheyer's third Duke basketball squad stacks up as a collection in the "best team" vote from the same coaches, their 9.6 percent trails only Houston's 13.5 percent, Alabama's 27.9 percent, and No. 1 Kansas' 35.6 percent.

And it's worth pointing out that Cooper Flagg and the Blue Devils sit one notch above the 7.7 percent of defending back-to-back UConn.