Cooper Flagg injury: Bruce Pearl calls loss of Duke star a 'huge hit'

Auburn and Duke are still the top two contenders to win the national title in college basketball coming into the postseason. With that, Bruce Pearl was asked about the effect that could now come from the injury to Cooper Flagg.

On the desk at a halftime during the SEC Tournament, Peter Burns asked Pearl about Flagg’s ankle injury in the Blue Devils’ own quarterfinal this morning against Georgia Tech in the ACC Tournament. He said their team should be fine right now with what they have without him but did express his own concern about how he thought it looked.

“Yeah, you know, it’s got to be – right now, it’s got to be next man up. I mean, right now, they’re just going to try to beat Georgia Tech and see who they’ve got to beat in the ACC,” said Pearl “Duke is a deep team. Jon Scheyer is a great coach.”

“Cooper Flagg impacts winning on both ends of the floor. That’s a huge, huge hit,” Pearl continued. “I don’t like the way he came down – the fact that he was in the air and landed on that thing and rolled it over there pretty good.”

Pearl then compared it to the ankle injury that Johni Broome had back in January that cost him two games over a two-week span for the Tigers. That made him wonder if this could impact Flagg’s availability not just for the rest of their conference tournament but for the start of the NCAA Tournament.

“We lost Johni Broome for a couple of weeks,” Pearl noted. “I mean, my guess is it could be, this could be maybe he won’t available in the first round. Duke is good enough to be able to advance without him though.”

Flagg did not return for Duke after halftime, nor did Maliq Brown. He did return to the bench, though, which was a positive sign after getting help off the court back to the locker room and later being in a wheelchair. The Blue Devils were then fine in the second half in coming back, from down as much as 14, against the Yellow Jackets to win at 78-70 and advance into the semifinals in the ACC.

Before his exit, Flagg had just two points in missing six of his seven shot attempts, including all of his three triples, with no assist. He did have four boards on the glass to go with two steals and a block.

Any absence for Flagg would absolutely impact the ACC Tournament and the NCAA Tournament. That said, it remains to be seen how significant this is for him with his left ankle coming out of this morning’s game in Charlotte.