Clinton native Keith Chesley is in his first year as an assistant coach with Division I Mount St. Mary’s University. The Mountaineers face Cooper Flagg and the Duke Blue Devils in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Friday in Raleigh, North Carolina. Photo courtesy of Army West Point Athletics and Virginia Military Institute Athletics

Keith Chesley is unlike most Mainers: He wants to see Cooper Flagg lose.

“That’s too funny,” Chesley said with a laugh. “I haven’t really had the chance to think about it that way, so I don’t know if I have a good answer for you on that one.”

Chesley, a Clinton native and Lawrence High School alum, is in his first season as an assistant coach at Mount St. Mary’s University. The Mountaineers take on Flagg and Duke in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Chesley is the defensive coordinator for the Mountaineers, meaning it’s his job to find a way to stop Flagg, the freshman sensation who has led the Blue Devils in points (18.9 per game) and rebounds (7.5 per game) this season.

Mount St. Mary’s (23-12) takes on Duke (31-3) at 2:50 p.m. on Friday at the Lenovo Center in Raleigh, North Carolina.

“Obviously, (Duke) is an extremely talented group,” Chesley said. “They have a lot of talent and can really score the basketball. We’re going to have to do our best, we’re going to try to keep them in front (of the defenders). We’re going to try to be us. We’re going to rely on the principals that we’ve used all year that have gotten us to this point. It doesn’t make sense to change it up now. We’re going to stick to those and give them everything we’ve got.”

Flagg, a 6-9 small forward who led Nokomis to the Class A state title in 2022, was named a consensus first team All-American by the Associated Press on Tuesday.

Keith Chesley Photo provided by Virginia Military Institute

“He’s super talented, obviously,” Chesley said. “He can dribble, pass and shoot. I think he’s got a great IQ. Just watching film, he sees the game very well. I think one of the things that, and I’m not sure people talk about this enough, but how hard he plays. He plays with a great motor, does a lot of the dirty work and isn’t afraid to do those things. Obviously, he’s got a baseline of talent that’s tremendous. But he plays very, very hard and I think that helps set him apart from some extremely talented players as well.”

Coaching has long been a part of Chesley’s DNA. He’s the son of longtime Lawrence girls basketball coach Greg Chesley.

“This year, he’s got a 20-minute drive home (from practice), so at least a couple times a week, between 8:30-9 (p.m.) we’ll catch up, which is nice,” said Greg Chesley, who was flying with his family to North Carolina on Thursday to see the game. “We have a lot in common in terms of basketball thinking, although he’s more of a defensive guy, I’m more offensive-minded. We’ll make jokes about that. But the conversation doesn’t take long to turn to basketball, that’s for sure.”

A 2015 graduate of the University of Maine at Augusta, and the leading scorer in UMA men’s basketball history with 2,119 points, Chesley is in his ninth season as an assistant coach in Division I. Chesley was a graduate assistant at Florida State in 2016 before serving as director of basketball operations at Stetson, Georgia Southern and James Madison. Chesley was an assistant at Army for the 2021-22 season before taking an assistant/defensive coordinator role at Virginia Military Institute from 2022-24.

“Keith is like a mini Greg (Chesley),” said former Lawrence boys coach and New England Basketball Hall of Famer Mike McGee. “Both were very intense (as players). I never had to get after Keith because he was always hard on himself and so intense. He’s probably one of the top five, in my 31 years of coaching, in intensity and work ethic.”

Duke is top-ranked team in the AP Top 25 and the No. 1 seed in the East region. The Blue Devils average 82.7 points per game and shoot 48.8 percent from the field. The Mountaineers are the 16th-seed, and beat American University, 83-72, in a First Four (play-in) game on Wednesday in Dayton, Ohio.

Mount St. Mary’s is a member of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC). The Mountaineers had an 11-9 (4-5 MAAC) record on Jan. 25, before going 8-3 in their final 11 games of the regular season. Mount St. Mary’s beat Iona, 63-49, on March 16 to capture the program’s first MAAC championship.

“Even going back to the MAAC tournament, no one gave us much of a chance,” Chesley said. “We were picked 11th (in the conference) to start the year. We finished fourth in the league. We weren’t expected to be there. But our guys in the locker room, and our head coach (Donny) Lind, have done an unbelievable job all year long, believing in themselves and being unbelievably resilient. We’ve had injuries, we’ve had ups and downs. But the group has stuck together and gone through things together. I’m really happy for the group for getting to experience this now.”