Duke forward Maliq Brown dislocated his left shoulder during the first half of the third-ranked Blue Devils’ 80-62 win over Virginia on Monday, and he won’t be back on the floor anytime soon.
Duke coach Jon Scheyer, speaking to “The Field of 68” on Tuesday, said Brown’s imaging was still being completed but that he won’t be available Saturday when the Blue Devils take on Illinois in a nonconference showdown at Madison Square Garden in New York.
“I’m bummed for him, man. He was playing such a great game, too,” Scheyer said. “We gotta get him the rest of his imaging, X-rays, MRIs today and we’ll know more moving forward. It’s something where you’re not gonna know — it takes some time to see how it heals and recovers. So I probably won’t even know anything here this week. I think it’s gonna take some time to see how he just recovers.
“Obviously, he’s a big part of what we do. But we’ll see the next week or so.”
Brown, a junior in his first season in Durham since transferring from Syracuse, is a defensive stopper who averages 2.5 points, 4.1 rebounds, 1.6 assists and 1.4 steals per game. He is shooting a whopping 76.9 percent on two-point attempts — which he’s only shooting 1.2 of per game.
Brown has helped Duke establish the sixth-best scoring defense in Division I at 60.8 points allowed per game. In 82 games (25 starts) for Syracuse (2022-24) and Duke, Brown has career averages of 6.4 points, 5.5 rebounds, 1.4 assists and 1.5 steals per game.
–Field Level Media
