Superstar freshman [autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag] looked the part of a future No. 1 overall pick during the first half of Friday night’s game against Army, scoring 13 points and adding 10 rebounds before the opening 20 minutes were up.
However, he could only play 25 minutes of the game after he suffered from more cramps in the second half. He also sat out the final minutes of Duke’s Monday win over Maine with similar problems, insisting after the game that he felt hydrated and prepared before tipoff.
With the Kentucky Wildcats, Arizona Wildcats, and Kansas Jayhawks all on the November schedule, there’s unfortunately not much time for Flagg to ease his way into a collegiate workload or diagnose the issue. Understandably, head coach [autotag]Jon Scheyer[/autotag] sounded determined to figure something out fast after the game.
“We’ve got to help him,” Scheyer said. “I’m not happy about it for him. We’ve got to help him, and we will.”
“Right after this, I can promise you, I’m going to be meeting, I don’t care if it’s all night, we can’t have that happening. Bottom line.”
Despite the cramps, Flagg leads the Blue Devils in assists (4.0), steals (2.5), and blocks (1.5) to start the season. He’s also second on the roster in scoring (15.5) and rebounding (9.0) after his Friday double-double.
“I thought he had it going, too,” Scheyer added. “That first half, he was really just controlling the whole game with his rebounding, his passing, his playmaking, his scoring, he was assertive shooting the ball.”
Duke plays Kentucky, another team within the preseason top 25 of the USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll, in Atlanta on Tuesday.
“We’re going to fix that,” Scheyer concluded about the cramping problem.
