Breaking News; Five star 7 foot point guard Brayden Buries commits To Duke Men basketball team over Kentucky and BYU… see more…
Breaking News; Five star 7 foot point guard Brayden Buries commits To Duke Men basketball team over Kentucky and BYU… see more…
It was a weekend of road tests for some of the top teams in college basketball, and the heavyweights found a way to pass all of them and avoid an upset. But a storyline as big as any in the country this weekend surrounded my No. 1 team, Auburn. Johni Broome went down with what Bruce Pearl is calling a significant ankle sprain, and the national player of the year front-runner is expected to miss some time. The good news is that an MRI on Sunday confirmed that Broome does not need surgery. The bad news is that Broome is out indefinitely.
The Tigers still found a way to edge South Carolina on the road, 66-63, as Tahaad Pettiford stepped up with clutch free throws and Pearl’s team came up with the closing stop. But now we have to ask, how much time will Broome miss? Will he be right back to normal when he comes back? How will Auburn look without the guy who has been the best player in the country for the majority of the season? In the unforgiving SEC, it won’t take long to find out what the Tigers are without him. Auburn welcomes a top 20 Mississippi State team on Tuesday before visiting a red-hot and ranked Georgia squad on Saturday. It feels like Broome’s situation isn’t too severe, but it’s certainly a fluid one
through the first half of Saturday afternoon’s 86-78 home win over Notre Dame, Duke basketball junior forward Maliq Brown played just under a minute for the No. 4-ranked Blue Devils (14-2, 6-0 ACC) before sitting out the remainder of the contest.
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“He’s proven to be one of our toughest guys, easily,” third-year Duke basketball head coach Jon Scheyer said about the 21-year-old Brown following the Blue Devils’ 10th straight win. “And so, the fact that he couldn’t go back in the game I don’t think is a good sign.”
Brown’s setback occurred when his right knee banged into Blue Devil forward Mason Gillis.
While Scheyer didn’t know the extent of the injury, there’s no doubt he was worried that the savvy defender might end up missing more than just the bulk of the game against Notre Dame.
“We’re gonna get imaging and get him looked at ASAP,” Scheyer noted about the 6-foot-9, 222-pound Brown, a first-year transfer addition from Syracuse averaging 3.3 steals per 40 minutes while adding 2.5 points and 4.5 rebounds per game off the bench. “I’m concerned…Maliq just provides such a different versatility with his defense.”
Duke star Cooper Flagg echoed those sentiments while speaking to Duke Blue Devils On SI in the locker room after powering the Blue
