Duke basketball suffered its first injuries of the season one week before the start of the year.
Now it officially feels like college basketball season as the Duke basketball program is dealing with its first injuries of the year.
It’s a yearly occurrence that a Blue Devil is dealing with some sort of lower leg/foot injury during the season, and luckily for Duke, its first aliments of the season are coming before the season even tips off.
In a video released on Twitter, updating the status of the team, Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski revealed that Matthew Hurt and Henry Coleman are the two players that have been injured and have been held out for precautionary reasons.
Coach K said that if Duke had played regular-season games last week, Hurt (leg) would have played, and Coleman did not practice this week because of an ankle injury suffered in the second Blue vs. White Scrimmage.
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Matthew Hurt was not named to any of the Preseason All-ACC Teams, but the sophomore forward did receive three votes for the ACC Preseason Player of the Year.
The Rochester, Minnesota native returned to Durham after a poor freshman season where he averaged 9.7 points and 3.8 rebounds per game, but the 6-foot-9 forward added close to 20 pounds of muscle in the offseason and is ready to become the Duke star many envisioned in his first season.
Coleman is an under-the-radar freshman who already has proven he is a fantastic leader.
Perhaps seldom used in his first season as a Blue Devil, Henry Coleman is the ideal person and player Krzyzewski wants to have in his program.
Could the Duke basketball forwards be out longer than expected?
Mike Krzyzewski said in his video update that he wants his team to enter the season fully healthy, and it seems certain that Matthew Hurt will be ready to go on November 25 when the Blue Devils host Gardner-Webb.
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However, it seems like Coleman might be more of a question mark given the context of Coach K’s comments and not explicitly saying that his freshman forward was being held out for precautionary reasons, and his parting words were “hopefully he will be back.”
For a program that has escaped any trouble with injuries or the virus, for the time being, Duke fans should be thrilled with the progress of the five-time National Champions to this point.