Yahoo Sports senior NBA analyst Kevin O’Connor is joined by former Butler star Gordon Hayward to discuss the Duke superstar’s ankle injury and what it means for the Blue Devils moving forward. Hear the full conversation on “The Kevin O’Connor Show” and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
The big news on Thursday is a Cooper flag injury happened.
He played 15 minutes for Duke, turned his left ankle, helped off the floor, was wheeled off for X-rays, and fortunately, he was back on the bench in the second half, walking under his own power.
Power did not have a walking boot on.
Scary situation though for Duke though, Gordon, to see him go down, and I would expect with an ankle sprain of that severity, he’ll probably miss the remaining of the conference tournament for Duke and maybe even the first round of the NCAA tournament.
What’s your initial reaction to the Cooper flag injury?
I, uh, had, had a little anchor in ankle injury of my own.
It’s, it’s not fun to deal with.
When something like that happens, it’s really scary cause um You know, and you can’t put weight on your foot or anything, you don’t know how it’s going to turn out.
Um, hopefully he’ll he, like you said, hopefully he’ll be OK.
I think for Duke, it’s, it’s, it’s not a one person has to step up and try to, you know, fill his shoes.
His shoes are, are too big for that.
He does so much for that team.
I think it’s gonna have to be everyone steps up, he does a little bit of everything and More than anything, he helps them win, uh, which is something that’s really, I think, hard for young people to do is lead teams to, to victory and not just stats.
And you mentioned you, you know all about those, obviously, um, you went through it to, to the worst degree and hopefully for Cooper, he’s able to get back this month, play for Duke in, in the NCAAA tournament.
Uh, we’ll see if he’s able to do that.
But ultimately, though, however long he’s out, you’re right, this is gonna have to be a by-it thing for Duke in order to continue.
Advancing to a point when Cooper Flag is able to return and maybe even be able to be effective.
So I’m interested in seeing how other guys step up here.
Con K Nipple, number one really in my eyes from the guy who can help himself from an NBA draft perspective and also is gonna be as important for Duke in terms of advancing.
He had 28 points and 7, 14 from the floor, 1213 from the line.
He had also had 8 assists and 1 turnover in this game without Cooper Flag.
Con Kanel looked excellent.
Without flag out there eating up a lot of touches.
I, I thought he was tremendous in the game.
So when somebody goes down, there are opportunities for other players.
Um, that’s just the reality of how it works.
So certainly gives Khan a chance to to show his stuff, and if he can produce like he did today, I think he’ll really definitely up his stock and, uh, the Duke Blue Devils will be really happy if he can do that.
