After beating Georgia Tech in the ACC Tournament Thursday, Duke basketball’s biggest concern is the health of star freshman Cooper Flagg.
Flagg exited the Blue Devils’ 78-70 quarterfinal win with 2:46 to play in the first half when he rolled his left ankle while pulling down a defensive rebound. Flagg scored two points and grabbed four rebounds in 15 minutes of action before getting hurt.
While the sight of Flagg in a wheelchair on his way to get testing done was frightening, it sounds like the do-everything forward avoided a catastrophic injury.
Duke head coach Jon Scheyer informed reporters after the game that X-rays on Flagg’s ankle were negative. However, Scheyer also cautioned that it is unlikely his best player returns to the court this weekend.
“To be honest with you, I would have to be convinced by everyone in the locker room when I go back that he should play. It’s not worth it. It just isn’t,” Scheyer said, via Brendan Marks of The Athletic.
It’s tough to argue with Scheyer’s logic. Duke is projected to be a No. 1 seed in the upcoming NCAA Tournament, and there’s no sense in pushing Flagg when he’s not at full health.
Most likely, we won’t see Flagg in tomorrow night’s semifinal, where the Blue Devils will face either Wake Forest or UNC. Should Duke win that game, they’d advance to the conference championship Saturday night, but it would still behoove them to hold Flagg out of that matchup as well.
Duke will also be without forward Maliq Brown, one of the team’s top reserves, who re-dislocated his left shoulder before Flagg went down.
Despite trailing by 14 points in the first half and losing Flagg and Brown to injury, the Blue Devils went on a 26-5 run spanning nearly nine minutes during the first and second halves to take command of today’s game.