ACC Player of the Year Cooper Flagg went down with an ankle injury in Duke’s ACC Tournament quarterfinal win over Georgia Tech on Thursday afternoon. Flagg was seen in a wheelchair as he went back for x-rays and further evaluation, and despite returning to the bench in the second half without a boot on, he did not return to the game.
Flagg’s potential absence, either because of the injury or an abundance of caution from head coach Jon Scheyer means that the ACC Tournament is now wide open, for any team to win, but it actually could be bad news for Duke’s biggest rival, the North Carolina Tar Heels.
The Tar Heels are currently inside the bubble for March Madness according to ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi, but not by much. Hubert Davis’s team faces Wake Forest in the quarterfinals directly after Duke’s win and as the No. 5 seed in the league, will set up a semifinal rivalry clash with the Blue Devils by beating the Demon Deacons. Duke swept the two regular-season meetings between the in-state rivals, and without Flagg on the court the Tar Heels will have a better chance to advance to the ACC Final, but his injury could actually be bad news.
The ACC has been down in the 2024-25 season and including North Carolina, Lunardi currently has just four ACC teams in the field: Duke, Clemson, Louisville, and the Tar Heels. That means, like last year when NC State stormed through the conference tourney, the ACC could have a bid-stealer, either Wake Forest, Stanford, or SMU. If one of those teams pulls a surprising upset and wins the conference title in Charlotte on Saturday, it could bump the Tar Heels from the field.
To make matters worse, if North Carolina does advance to the semifinals and knocks off Duke, that all-important Quad 1 win will lose quite a bit of luster if it comes with the Blue Devils best player on the bench.