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RALEIGH, N.C. — He’s baaaaack.
Duke star freshman Cooper Flagg — who missed the last two games of the ACC tournament with a sprained left ankle — is officially active for the No. 1 Blue Devils’ NCAA Tournament opener against No. 16 Mount St. Mary’s on Friday, the program confirmed shortly before its first media availability of the tournament Thursday.
Flagg said that while he “hated” not finishing the conference tournament with his teammates, he’s confident in how he’s feeling physically after returning to full practice Wednesday.
“We have an incredible team, incredible training staff,” Flagg said. “So we’ve been working through the steps of just getting back to 100 percent, and I feel very good. I’m very confident moving forward.”
Duke coach Jon Scheyer said Flagg was not only a full participant in practice Wednesday, including with contact, but he thought Flagg’s weeklong absence may actually have been beneficial from a rest perspective. Flagg hadn’t missed a single game all season before the ACC tournament semifinals.
“For us, this is about him being able to move properly. He wasn’t going to play if he was compensating,” Scheyer said. “Look, no matter what, an ankle sprain, to say he’s 100 percent tomorrow, he has to work through that a little bit still. But he’s not compensating.”
Flagg went down shortly before halftime of Duke’s ACC tournament opener against Georgia Tech. The 6-foot-9 freshman landed on an opponent’s foot while going for a rebound, and immediately crumpled to the court in pain. “I’ve twisted my ankle a good amount of times. Growing up, I feel like most basketball players go through something like that,” Flagg said. “It was kind of just figuring out how severe it is and how it feels — see if you can just get up and walk it off, but obviously it was definitely more than that.”
Flagg had to be helped off the floor by teammates before being put in a wheelchair and wheeled off for X-rays, which immediately came back negative. The Maine native said that he also had an MRI done, which “looked really good.”
Scheyer said in the immediate aftermath of Flagg’s injury that “it’s not worth it” for Duke to risk playing him again in the ACC tournament, especially knowing the Blue Devils are capable of winning the program’s sixth national championship over the next three weeks. And he was right; even without Flagg, the Blue Devils won their second ACC tournament championship in three seasons under Scheyer.
In addition to making sure Flagg wasn’t favoring one leg or another in the wake of his injury, Scheyer said that the program did force plate testing on Flagg this week to ensure he could jump and land without further issue.
“There’s not an imbalance of the way he’s moving, so I think that’s the biggest thing,” Scheyer said. “We built him up slowly and really progressed him the right way, but he’s ready to go.”
During Duke’s open practice Thursday, Flagg was running, dunking and looking just as he has this entire season, one in which he has emerged as the Wooden Award frontrunner and confirmed his likely position as the No. 1 pick in June’s NBA Draft. He made multiple 3-pointers without wearing any kind of ankle brace, too. If it was the first time you’d ever seen Flagg on a basketball court, you’d have no clue he was coming off an injury.
Scheyer joked that Flagg thought he was good to play last week because of “the way he’s wired,” but admitted that holding him out was in his best long-term interest.
“I’m really confident,” Flagg said, “about going 100 percent tomorrow.”
(Photo: Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images)
