If Duke is going to win the ACC Tourament title, it’s probably going to be without Cooper Flagg
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CHARLOTTE, N.C – If Duke is going to win its record 23rd ACC Tournament championship and maintain its status as the nation’s No. 1 team heading into next week’s NCAA Tournament, it will likely have to do so without Cooper Flagg.
The Blue Devils’ star injured his left ankle and had to be helped to the locker room late in the first half of Thursday’s conference 78-70 quarterfinal victory against Georgia Tech. Although he returned to the bench in the second half, clearly favoring the ankle, he didn’t return to the game.
His status moving forward is still uncertain. But according to coach Jon Scheyer, it’s highly doubtful the national Player of the Year frontrunner will be available for either Friday’s semifinal matchup against North Carolina or a possible championship game on Saturday.
Even if Flagg says he’s able to play. Which Scheyer is expecting him to do.
“I already know how he’s wired,” Scheyer said. “But look, to be honest with you, I would have to be convinced by everybody in the locker room when I go back there that he should play. It’s not worth it. It just isn’t.
“We’ve got to see if we can get him right for this run that we can make in the (NCAA) Tournament.”
Flagg went down with an ankle injury after grabbing a rebound with 2:46 left in the first half. His left foot appeared to slip out from underneath him as he landed and he immediately crashed to the floor in pain.
The 6-9 wing hobbled to the bench, where he was attended to by Duke’s medical staff before being heading to the locker room with the assistance of 2 teammates.
X-rays taken at halftime were negative. Scheyer said that Flagg suffered a sprained ankle, adding that he expected it to swell up overnight.
Flagg was off to a slow start before his injury, going just 1-for-7 from the floor (0-for-3 3-pointers) with 4 rebounds and a turnover. He wasn’t the only Duke player that struggled early, though.
The Blue Devils fell behind 26-12 with 9 minutes remaining in the first half and were still down by 9 when their star was sidelined.
“It sucks that you really don’t have time to react to it,” teammate Kon Knueppel said of Flagg’s injury.
Maybe that was for the best. Because instead of making a bad situation worse, Flagg’s absence seemed to light a spark under Duke. After giving up a quick 3-pointer by Georgia Tech’s Naithan George, the Blue Devils finished the half on a 9-2 run. They carried the momentum into the second half, scoring 22 of the first 31 points to finally take control.
Knueppel led the charge by putting up a Flagg-like stat line of 28 points, 5 rebounds, 8 assists and 2 steals while Isaiah Evans and Khaman Maluach added 14 points each. Evans’ points came mostly from long range, Maluach’s mostly on dunks off Knueppel lobs.
“Obviously Coop is a huge part of our team,” said Evans, who made 4 of his 8 3-point attempts on a day in which the rest of the team was a frigid 3-for-22. “It hurts to see him going down. But it’s next man up and we’re going to keep picking our guys up.”
The question is whether Duke has enough firepower left to keep winning now that the level of competition is about to be raised.
Not only did the Blue Devils lose Flagg on Thursday, they also played most of the game without defensive stopper Maliq Brown, who dislocated the same shoulder that sidelined him for 4 of the final 5 games of the regular season.
The prognosis for his return is even more bleak than Flagg’s.
Scheyer said that the junior forward was in extreme pain as he was taken from the arena on a stretcher and transported to a nearby hospital. The Duke coach said Brown “is going to miss time.”
Reserves Mason Gillis and Patrick Ngongba came off the bench to help make up for the loss of Flagg and Brown by making significant contributions to the come-from-behind victory. It’s going to take more of the same for the Blue Devils to continue advancing in the tournament.
“We’re going to do it the same way we’ve done everything this year, which is together and connected,” senior guard Sion James said. “We knew there was going to be adversity throughout the tournament and things weren’t going to go according to plan. It started that way, but we stayed together.”
Award-winning columnist Brett Friedlander has covered the ACC and college basketball since the 1980s.
