Duke freshman Mason Plumlee suffered a hard fall in practice yesterday which resulted in a fractured left wrist for the 6’10 forward from Warsaw, Indiana. The good news for Plumlee is that the wrist will not require surgery, and the Duke medical team will re-evaluate the wrist on a weekly basis. Plumlee had already begun to fulfill the expectations he brought with him to Durham by averaging 12 points, eight rebounds, and three blocks in Duke’s two preseason exhibition games. The length of his recovery is dependent on the nature and location of the fracture, but an assumed 6-8 week convalescence would have Plumlee back in the Duke lineup around Christmas-time, at the earliest.
Plumlee was ranked as high as 10th in the ESPN 100 last year and was a likely starter for Duke’s first game against UNC-Greensboro this Friday. For the time that he’s out, Plumlee’s contributions on the inside will certainly be missed as it means that the versatile Kyle Singler will have to be used more down in the low post as opposed to around the perimeter where the Blue Devils more urgently need him.
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Bummer for the kid, bc I'm sure he's worked hard. But I had been disheartened that the potential Duke/UConn Preseason NIT title game would find the Huskies w/out Ater Majok, the talented freshman frontcourt player. While it's tough to root for an injury, I am glad the playing field has been leveled to some extent, w/ Duke losing a player from its frontcourt. . Besides, it's Duke, & the bad blood, here in Husky Nation, runs surprisingly deep.
...so I'll root against them any way I can. I root against the Devils harder than I root against the Red Sox.
Well....yeah. Sigh. The other good news you didn't mention is that it's on his non-shooting hand...so he could theoretically go at less than 100%. But it'll depend on how well Duke is playing. If Duke beats UConn and gets past the Gonzaga game with say 2 losses, then they'll wait it out. If they have 4+ losses, uhhhh yeah.
Garik16:
Quite true. You know, as a righty myself (though on the court I can go left with excellent results), I just assumed that his right was his shooting hand and readers would assume right along with me that his left (the side of the wrist injury) was his off-hand. In this case I was correct, but I now see how closed my mind was and how I was insulting the southpaw contingent of our readership in immediately assuming MP's right-handedness. My apologies to you all.
Jokes aside, though...you're right. MP could conceivably play at less than full strength if he's needed and if he's a tough kid (which by all reports, he is) but I doubt Coach K would do that to him unless the need was even more glaring than anticipated. And maybe not even then. I agree with you that it may be affected by how the Blue Devils get through this early part of their schedule. No doubt, Plumlee will be chomping at the bit to get out on the court but even moreso if Duke has a comparatively rough start. Note...I didn't see any news on the location or type of fracture (hairline? comminuted? into the joint?) so my mention of 6-8 weeks was maybe even on the conservative side. Depending on those other factors, some of these things can even take up to 10-12 weeks to heal. We definitely hope that is NOT the case for MP, and that his recovery is fast and uneventful.
John Stevens
RTC