There will be lots more coming from me in the very near future regarding the NCAA conference tournaments (which are happening right now) and of course, ample predictions as selection Sunday for march madness nears (it’s this Sunday btw).

For right now though, I just wanted to provide a short update after a scary injury took place today during the Duke / Georgia Tech match this afternoon. It was not considered to be a scary injury in the sense of someone shattering their leg in two… but rather it was scary for Duke fans and people who already have betting tickets for the Blue Devils to win the big dance.

Cooper Flagg, consensus #1 pick in the upcoming nba draft (if he chooses to declare) landed on his ankle while grabbing a defensive board in the opening half of the game. In my opinion, as I was watching it live, it looked like a pretty serious ankle injury; nothing leg shattering, but something that would keep a baller out for a month at least. I sincerely hope to be wrong though because the tourney won’t be the same without him in it. The good news is that Duke coach (Jon Scheyer) has already updated us that the X-rays were negative. Nothing broken.

So where does this leave us? Well, Duke was actually down pretty big in the first half and then Flagg went out… So it wasn’t looking great. But it became a sort of statement win for them when they did ultimately come back in the second half to win it fairly handedly.

Moving forward, it’s basically just a waiting game. The tourney starts next Thursday, but you have to imagine that Duke can survive their first 1 or 2 games without Flagg if needed. So this could potentially give him about 2 weeks if he and the team decide to rest him until the sweet 16 (if Duke is still in that is).

There will definitely be doubters though. There are already whispers about Duke being a fraudulent #1 team this year because they play in the ACC (which is not as strong as a few of the other conferences). So yes, their schedule was softer all year long and they don’t have as many top 10 wins as some other teams, but I still think they are a very solid roster.

There is also a world where Flagg just doesn’t return at all. If he does intend to declare for the draft (which no one really knows yet), he might not want to risk another injury in march madness which could hurt his draft stock and potential NBA career.

So we all must wait and this has the potential to add a very difficult wrinkle to all of our brackets when deciding whether we like Duke to make a deep run or not.

-E