Duke coach Jon Scheyer said Thursday that x-rays on Cooper Flagg came back negative after the Blue Devils’ superstar freshman left the team’s ACC Tournament quarterfinal game against Georgia Tech with a sprained ankle.
Flagg sustained the injury with 2:46 remaining in the first half after rolling his ankle coming down for a defensive rebound. He immediately grabbed at his ankle and lay writhing in pain on the court as trainers tended to him. Flagg was eventually helped off the floor with assistance back to the locker room area and later placed in a wheelchair to be taken to an exam room.
At halftime, Duke listed him as doubtful to return with an ankle injury before eventually ruling him out.
Duke rallied from a double-digit deficit without him on the floor to win 78-70.
“He sprained his ankle,” Scheyer said postgame. “X-rays were negative, which is great. We just have to understand there’s going to be swelling and see how he recovers and how we go from there.”
Flagg was unable to initially put much, if any, weight on the leg after the incident, which is not uncommon for ankle sprains. He punched a chair on the bench in frustration and screamed before being taken back to the locker room. In an encouraging sign, Flagg did return to the bench walking under his own power and without a boot.
When asked about his status for Friday’s semifinal game, Scheyer did not come across as optimistic he’ll be sending his star freshman onto the floor.
“Well, I already know how he’s wired. And look, to be honest with you, I would have to be, like, convinced by everybody in the locker room when I go back there that he should play,” Scheyer said. “It’s not worth it. It just isn’t. Again, he was swollen already. It’s not about being ready to go tomorrow. That’s not the most important thing for us. We’ve got to see if we can get him right for this run that we can make in the tournament. But I would have to be really convinced that we should even consider seeing if he can go tomorrow. He may not be able to go anyway. He probably won’t be able to go anyway. But I think it’s a real long shot. A real long shot.”
Flagg leads Duke in scoring, rebounding, assists and blocks this season for a Blue Devils team that won the ACC title outright and entered the postseason with a 28-3 overall record. Flagg finished the regular season in style with a 15-point, nine-rebound, six-assist, four-block game in Duke’s sweep of rival North Carolina.
Duke’s injury woes against Georgia Tech alone are staggering with Selection Sunday just days away. Earlier in the game, junior forward Maliq Brown also suffered an injury in an apparent aggravation of a nagging shoulder injury. He was taken to the hospital and is dealing with a dislocated shoulder.
CBS Sports Bracketologist Jerry Palm expects Duke to be tight-lipped about Flagg’s injury over the weekend, if he does not play again in Charlotte, to possibly preserve its spot as a No. 1 seed.
“If he’s out only this game, no big deal,” Palm said. “If he is expected to miss significant time, that’s different.”
Flagg, a betting favorite to win National Player of the Year and the projected No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, is the first major conference freshman to lead his team in all five major statistical categories since Ben Simmons did so for LSU in 2015-16, underscoring his irreplaceable production.
The big question with Flagg is of course how much, if at all, the injury lingers, and to what extent it may impact him. He was able to walk back to the bench from the locker room area while only slightly favoring his ankle, which could in theory bode well for his future availability as Duke marches into the postseason as one of the favorites to win the NCAA championship. Championship odds for Duke in some places went from +300 to +770 in a matter of minutes in the wake of Flagg’s injury, before resettling at +350 when cameras showed him walking without a severe limp.
If Flagg misses NCAA Tournament
In a cruel world in which this injury ends up being worse than anticipated and Flagg misses the tournament, etching his name along Kenyon Martin as an all-time what-if, here are the stakes: Flagg would be the 5th player ever to win National Player of the Year (AP, Wooden or Naismith) and not play in the NCAA Tournament (1963-64 Gary Bradds, 1969-70 Pete Maravich, 1974-75 David Thompson, 1999-00 Martin).
However, Duke’s roster aside from Flagg is far from barren. There are four other five-star prospects on Duke’s current roster including two other projected lottery picks for 2025 led by guard Kon Knueppel, the team’s second-leading scorer, and center Khaman Maluach, a 7-foot-2 big man who is second on the team in rebounding and blocks.
Auburn is tied for Duke as the favorite to win it all (+350), with Houston and Florida (+700) following.
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