As Cooper Flagg, Duke visit, Boston College basketball is the hottest ticket in town

The Blue Devils are 15-2 and off to a 7-0 start in Atlantic Coast Conference play, having dispatched Pittsburgh, Notre Dame, and Miami over the course of eight days.

Flagg, the Maine native who is projected as the top pick in June’s NBA Draft, provided the highlight in that stretch with a scintillating 42-point performance against the Fighting Irish, the most ever scored by a freshman in a men’s ACC game.

Flagg has largely delivered on the hype as a preseason All-American (having never played a collegiate game) with 18.7 points, 8.2 rebounds, and 4.1 assists per game for the Blue Devils, winners of 11 straight entering Saturday night.

ACC play has been far less kind to the Eagles, who have followed up an 8-3 nonleague slate with a 1-5 start to the conference schedule. BC has dropped three in a row, with a home loss to Syracuse bookended by road defeats at Georgia Tech and Notre Dame.

Duke has beaten BC in the last nine matchups between the teams, as well as taking 21 of the last 22, with the lone blip coming in an 89-84 Eagles win at Conte Forum in 2017.

And while BC has hosted plenty of talented Duke teams over the years — and Flagg’s status as June’s top pick isn’t set in stone — it’s rare that a prospect of his caliber visits Chestnut Hill. The only future No. 1 pick to face the Eagles at Conte Forum this century was Paolo Banchero in 2022. Before that, you have to go all the way back to Georgetown’s Allen Iverson in 1996.

That’s led to particularly high interest among students, the most loyal of whom will find themselves rewarded with a chance to see basketball’s next big thing up close.

“For high-demand games for both basketball and hockey, student tickets are based on attendance at earlier home games,” O’Neill explained. “Students who attend the most games have access to the high-demand games.”

Tip-off at Conte Forum is set for 8 p.m. on Saturday.

Amin Touri can be reached at amin.touri@globe.com.