Duke forward Maliq Brown appears to have re-injured his left shoulder midway through the first half of Thursday’s ACC Tournament game against Georgia Tech and was helped to the locker room.
The 6-foot-9 Brown reached in on a dribble-drive play by Tech’s Naithan George with roughly five minutes left in the opening half of Thursday ACC Tournament quarterfinal and immediately grabbed his ailing left shoulder. After a brief meeting with trainers on the Duke bench, Brown was helped to the locker room.
And Brown wouldn’t be Duke’s only injury concern Thursday as superstar freshman Cooper Flagg appeared to suffer an ankle injury a few minutes later and was seen being taken to the locker room in a wheelchair just before halftime as the Blue Devils trailed Georgia Tech 31-26 at the break.
Both Brown and Flagg were later ruled out by the team with their respective injuries, with reports surfacing Brown was stretchered out of the Charlotte arena, according to local TV reporter Chris Lea.
Brown is still recovering from a dislocated left shoulder suffered in mid-February agaisnt Virginia, with X-rays and an MRI revealing the damage. Brown has also missed time this season with a sprainted toe and a sprained knee.
“I think you can guess what’s coming, too, with my predictable answer here,” Scheyer said to start his Feb. 20 media availability. “We got some, uh – did all the imaging. Positive news: There’s nothing abnormal, you know, that you aren’t ready to see, you know, with the dislocated shoulder. So, I think we’re optimistic that we can get him back this season. I think the hardest part is a lot of it has to do with his stability, which, right now, he’s pretty sore still. So we have to see how much time that takes. Is it, is it a couple weeks? Is it more? But he’s going to be out. I mean, obviously, he’s not playing, you know, in the next week or so at a minimum.”
Brown didn’t record any stats Thursday after just about four mintues of action after coming off the bench against Georgia Tech. Meanwhile, Flagg was struggling through a 1-of-7 shooting start for just 2 first-half points Thursday. Neither returned to the floor for the start of the second half.
On3’s Sam Gillenwater contributed to this report
