Duke basketball: Jeremy Roach's status for Wake Forest game
Duke basketball captain and junior point guard Jeremy Roach suffered a toe injury late in the first half of the team's most recent loss: to Purdue in the Phil Knight Legacy title game on Nov. 27.
Although he returned to that game before seeing his usual full load of minutes in wins over Ohio State, Boston College, and Iowa, Roach was not on the floor for the No. 15 Blue Devils (10-2, 1-0 ACC) in Saturday's 82-55 home victory over Maryland Eastern Shore (3-7, 0-0 Mid-Eastern). And the toe he injured against Purdue was the culprit.
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As first-year Duke basketball head coach Jon Scheyer noted in his postgame press conference, Roach has been playing through pain in his toe and would have been willing to go again on Saturday.
"I actually had to go to him to talk to him about it," Scheyer explained, "because he's a true warrior out there, and it's not right for him to continue to do that."
However, Scheyer pointed out that the timely breather in Duke's schedule should allow Roach to fully heal and be ready for action when the Blue Devils take the court next: on the road against Wake Forest (7-3, 0-1 ACC) on Dec. 20 at 6:30 p.m. ET (ACCN).
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"He'll be OK for our next game," Scheyer said. "He has just been playing through pain. And so he hasn't been able to practice. He hasn't been able to do extra work. And so, for us, his health comes first before any game, and this is the one chance we have for him to get back to 100 percent. So he won't do anything for the next couple of days."
In the three games that Jeremy Roach did play since the loss to Purdue, the 21-year-old former five-star recruit averaged 13.7 points, bumping his season average to 13.1 points. And his 11 assists across that span were on par with his 3.5 dimes per game for the season; plus, his shooting percentages didn't drop.
But perhaps it's worth mentioning he didn't tally a steal in either of his past two outings after coming away with at least one in each of the team's previous eight games.
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