Duke coach Jon Scheyer announces injured forward Dariq Whitehead out vs. Georgia Tech

During Monday night’s loss at Virginia Tech, freshman Duke forward Dariq Whitehead went down with an apparent lower leg injury. As Whitehead went up for the ball on a play in the second half, he appeared to come down awkwardly on his left leg. After the Hokies scored on the play, Whitehead quickly hobbled back to the Blue Devil side of the court to be looked at by the trainers. As he sat courtside, the Duke freshman appeared to be in a tremendous amount of pain and was eventually ruled out for the rest of the game.

A few days later and it seems Whitehead will be back in the lineup at some point soon, though Blue Devils head coach Jon Scheyer says he’ll miss at least one more game.

“Dariq is not going to play Saturday,” revealed Scheyer at his press conference this week. “Yeah, he’s just not ready to go and we need to get him fully healthy and we’ll take it from there. But we’ve got positive news, he’s just not ready for Saturday.”

Duke faces Georgia Tech on the road this weekend in a game where they will not have Dariq Whitehead. However, a return is potentially on the table for the Blue Devils’ home-stand next week against Tobacco Road foes Wake Forest and North Carolina.

This isn’t the first time Whitehead has dealt with injury issues. He suffered a foot injury prior to the season and complications from that recovery sidelined him for a few games earlier in the year. But that injury was to his right foot, while this one is to his left leg — so there aren’t any concerns the two are connected.

Before going down, Whitehead, who was a top-five recruit out of high school, averaged 8.4 points and 2.3 rebounds per game for Duke.