Duke basketball: Jeremy Roach's injury status entering Miami game

Jeremy Roach may or may not be near a return to the Duke basketball lineup.

Duke basketball captain Jeremy Roach has missed three straight games and four overall this season due to a lingering toe injury he sustained in the team's loss to Purdue in late November. And it sounds like the junior guard, averaging 11.9 points and 3.2 assists, might miss more time for the now-unranked Blue Devils (13-5, 4-3 ACC).

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Next on the schedule is a bout against the No. 17 Miami Hurricanes (15-3, 6-2 ACC) in Cameron Indoor Stadium at noon ET Saturday. On Wednesday evening, Blue Devil play-by-play man David Shumate began the latest installment of "Fast Break with Jon Scheyer" by asking about Roach's status for that contest.

It's safe to say the first-year Duke basketball head coach didn't come across as confident that Roach would be ready to play versus the visiting Hurricanes, going as far as implying that the 21-year-old former five-star recruit could be out another week or more.

"He's starting to do a little bit more in practice," Scheyer said. "He's still up in the air for Saturday, but he's progressing in the right direction. Our medical team has done a great job with him. I think the two weeks of just really resting it has helped him. The swelling's gone down. And he's moving in the right direction.

"It's just a matter of I can't tell you yet if [Jeremy Roach's return will be] Saturday, Monday, the following Saturday, or even later than that. But our main thing is [him being] 100 percent getting back or close to it. It may not be 100 percent, but getting close to it and then figuring out when the right time is to play."

As Scheyer noted, after the Miami game, the Blue Devils have only one day off before their road game against the Virginia Tech Hokies (11-7, 1-6 ACC) at 7 p.m. ET Monday.

On that note, if Jeremy Roach is again in street clothes and wearing a protective boot on his right foot on Saturday, it seems the probability would be low for his return from injury to come in Blacksburg.

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