A Charlotte Hornets curse? Duke’s Cooper Flagg goes down in his first ACC tourney game

A cynic would say that Cooper Flagg had a great audition for the Charlotte Hornets on Thursday afternoon when he played a college game in Charlotte on the Hornets’ floor for the very first time.

Almost immediately, he got hurt.

This is the Hornets’ usual approach, of course, and they are as much in the Cooper Flagg draft sweepstakes as anyone as their latest disappointing season draws to a close. LaMelo Ball has dealt with ankle injuries for the better part of his five-year career. Brandon Miller is out for the rest of this season with a right wrist injury. The Los Angeles Lakers traded for Hornets center Mark Williams, then returned him to sender because they decided he was damaged goods because either he’s already been hurt too much, or he had the potential to get hurt too much, or something.

It’s the Charlotte Hornets curse; it gets everybody in the end.

As for Flagg, let’s all hope that what happened with 2:46 left in the first half of No. 1 seed Duke’s eventual 78-70 win over No. 8 seed Georgia Tech in an ACC Tournament quarterfinal Thursday was nothing much. Nothing good comes from a player with Flagg’s immense talent going down.

Duke coach Jon Scheyer called Flagg’s injury a “sprained ankle” and said X-rays were negative. But Scheyer also said Flagg’s ankle was already swelling after the game and called it “a real long shot” for Flagg to play in Friday’s semifinal. In fact, Scheyer sounded like he’d have to be convinced to play Flagg at all for the rest of the ACC Tournament, noting that the team had far bigger goals.

“I already know how he’s wired,” Scheyer said of Flagg. “Look, to be honest with you, I would have to be, like, convinced by everybody in the locker room when I go back there that he should play. It’s not worth it. It just isn’t. Again, he was swollen already. It’s not about being ready to go tomorrow (in the ACC semifinal). That’s not the most important thing for us. We’ve got to see if we can get him right for this run that we can make in the (NCAA) Tournament.”

As for the ACC Tournament semifinal, Scheyer reiterated: “He may not be able to go anyway. He probably won’t be able to go anyway. But I think it’s a real long shot. A real long shot.”

The injury looked scary for sure. Flagg went up high for a defensive rebound, then came down awkwardly with the ball and hit the floor, holding his left leg and ankle. He would eventually limp off the court, then hobble to the locker room, supported by a teammate on either side. The crowd hushed when it happened, as Flagg lay on the floor.

Flagg returned to the Duke bench in the second half with no visible brace, but he didn’t play again in the game. When he walked off the court after Duke’s win, he did so without aid, but he definitely had a hitch in his giddy-up.

Flagg would finish the game with very un-Flagg numbers: two points, on 1-for-7 shooting, in 15 minutes, and a minus-7 on the plus-minus rating, for the 18-year-old freshman star who almost surely will be the NBA’s No. 1 draft pick in June. (The Hornets will be in contention for that pick of course, in the draft lottery as they always are).

Duke (29-3) won anyway, of course, even after being down 26-12 to Georgia Tech in the first half. Without Flagg, Duke just relied on the rest of its stable of stars, as Kon Knueppel scored 28 points, Khaman Maulach had 14 and former North Mecklenburg star Isaiah Evans had 14 as well. (“The air smells great,” Evans said of his Charlotte hometown).

The Blue Devils are as well-equipped to survive an injury to a star as almost any college team in history. They went 0 for 13 on their first 13 three-point shots Thursday, but still took care of business on what for Duke was a bad day even when you don’t count Flagg’s injury.

“I couldn’t be more proud of the heart, the character, the competitiveness of our team,” Scheyer said.

Now Duke will try to show that heart twice more in a row. Against better teams. And, likely, without Flagg.

This story was originally published March 13, 2025 at 3:36 PM.

Scott Fowler

The Charlotte Observer

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Columnist Scott Fowler has written for The Charlotte Observer since 1994 and has earned 26 APSE awards for his sportswriting. He hosted The Observer’s podcast “Carruth,” which Sports Illustrated once named “Podcast of the Year.” Fowler also conceived and hosted the online series and podcast “Sports Legends of the Carolinas,” which featured 1-on-1 interviews with NC and SC sports icons and was turned into a book. He occasionally writes about non-sports subjects, such as the 5-part series “9/11/74,” which chronicled the forgotten plane crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 212 in Charlotte on Sept. 11, 1974. Support my work with a digital subscription