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Duke's Jon Scheyer Reveals Cooper Flagg Minutes Plan

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Sean Deveney | Last updated Mar 21, 2025 8:15 PM ET

Only seven minutes into the NCAA Tournament opener for Duke on Friday afternoon, against No. 16-seeded Mount St. Mary's, the Blue Devils found themselves up comfortably, 22-6. It was just the right sort of tempo to get star freshman forward Cooper Flagg back into the mix after a nasty ankle injury that knocked him out of the ACC Tournament.

Flagg hurt the ankle in the first half of Duke's first ACC tourney game, against Georgia Tech. He missed all three of the Blue Devils' wins in the tournament, as the team took the conference championship.

The fast start against Mount St. Mary's ensured that Duke coach Jon Scheyer could go easy on Flagg, and allow him to get his feet wet after having more than a week off.

Flagg tallied 14 points, seven rebounds and four assists in 22 minutes in what turned out to be a 93-49 demolition.

After the game, Scheyer was asked what he was looking for in Flagg's return, and what the plan was for his minutes. He was happy, he said, to give Flagg a few extra minutes, but equally happy to get him off the floor unscathed.

"The biggest thing for me was him not pacing. I didn't want him to pace. Then obviously making sure he was moving, where he wasn't off balance or favoring one leg or the other," Scheyer said.

"We had already addressed that before this game, so that wasn't a big concern. I was just making sure he wasn't pacing. Obviously giving him a few extra minutes, I'm sure that's going to be helpful for Sunday. As it got down in the second half, my thing was to limit his minutes as much as possible."

Duke will now move on to play No. 9-seeded Baylor in Round 2 of the tournament on Sunday.

This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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