Duke Basketball: Zion Williamson’s status sets stage for sweet revenge

The news that Zion Williamson’s injury is not as serious as fans feared instantly led to visions of the Duke basketball players exacting revenge at UNC in two and a half weeks.

It’s possible my insides actually hurt worse the day after the 1998-99 Duke basketball team lost to Connecticut in the final minute of the national championship game — as a high school senior at the time, I convinced my mom to let me stay home from school that day so I could deal with my sadness.

However, my sulking all day today seemed to set a personal record for any day following a defeat of the Blue Devils.

After No. 1 Duke’s 88-72 home loss to No. 8 UNC on Wednesday night, which included the injury to freshman Zion Williamson that I worried would keep him from ever again lacing ’em up (bad choice of words) for head coach Mike Krzyzewski, I went straight to bed and didn’t get up for about 12 hours — most of the time trying to just lie there and not sleep so as to avoid nightmares of Tar Heels grinning and Zion slipping.

But I’m all good now — well, other than dealing with nausea that always lasts for days following a Duke loss to UNC — thanks to this oh-so-sweet tweet:

Duke star Zion Williamson has a Grade 1 right knee sprain and will be day-to-day. Sigh of relief for the possible No. 1 overall pick.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) February 21, 2019

In case you’ve been on another planet, the freshman sensation from another planet caused Twitter to explode, Nike stock to drop, and Duke fans to vomit by spraining his right knee 30 seconds into the game when his shoe fell apart as he attempted to plant his left foot in order to make a quick change of direction on the Blue Devils’ first possession.

This latest news, though, means that not only will Williamson almost certainly be back by March 9 (the rivalry rematch in the Dean Dome), but he may even be back as soon as Saturday (the rematch against Syracuse, who won in Durham on Jan. 14 due in large part to Duke freshman point guard Tre Jones spraining his shoulder six minutes into the game and not returning).

Before seeing this spirit-lifting news, I had finally come out of my sad state just enough to write an opinion piece about how Duke, now 23-3 overall and 11-2 in ACC play, could still win a national championship without Williamson, who is still averaging 21.6 points, 8.8 rebounds, 2.2 steals, and 1.8 blocks despite his 30-second box score dinging his numbers.

I may have been fooling myself that the program’s sixth title was still in sight even without the services of the program’s most freakishly talented player in history, but I was determined to shift my outlook in a positive direction.

But I never hit “PUBLISH” on what I had written.

Because just before I was about to, I saw the above tweet, forcing me to highlight everything I had just written and mashing “DELETE” while humming Hallelujah!

I haven’t rewatched the UNC game. I turned it off as soon as the last second ticked off the clock — it’s a good thing I did because if I had seen Luke Maye smiling and Tar Heel students celebrating on Franklin St., I’d probably still be under my covers and wouldn’t have seen the daylight at all today.

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Other than the added blemish to Duke’s record, I have decided to erase the entire UNC game from my memory bank. So while some Blue Devils had some impressive efforts, I won’t rehash them, as that would force me to also rehash the victory by the Tar Heels, who already have the ACC’s easiest conference schedule and were also lucky enough to play a Zion-less Duke squad.

The future is all that matters now.

Barring Williamson deciding to go against everything he has ever said by sitting out the rest of the season to guard against a potential injury that could keep him from earning an estimated $1 billion across his future professional career, the future of Duke’s season looks as promising as ever.

ALSO READ: If healthy, Zion Williamson will play for Blue Devils

And that future includes what is now shaping up to be the most-hyped Duke-UNC game ever played.

I’ll leave you with three early predictions for that night:

Revenge will be sweet for the Blue Devils — as sweet of revenge as fans have experienced since Duke beat UNLV in 1991 — causing me not to want to sleep at all for days.
Maye, who had 30 points and 15 rebounds in Round 1, will learn that buckets and boards don’t come so easy when Zion is present.
Zion will be wearing some pair of shoes other than the type he wore on Wednesday night.

#SI6HTS remain bright.