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The Duke Blue Devils may have suffered another big loss against the North Carolina Tar Heels. This time it came in the form of starting big man Marques Bolden and occurred less than three minutes into Saturday’s game. Bolden was chasing down an open layup attempt by Garrison Brooks and went up for a block, proceeding to land awkwardly on his knee.
Here’s a look at the scene courtesy of Kyle Boone of CBS Sports. You can see Bolden go up and land while immediately grabbing his knee shortly after.
It was a scary scene and the Dean Dome went silent fairly quickly while Bolden held his knee and athletic trainers came out to check him. The Duke staff attempted to block his leg with towels as he was checked. After the center was able to stand, he was helped off the floor by teammates, as SB Nation shows.
This is the second scary injury suffered by a Duke player this season during a game against the Tar Heels. As most surely remember, Zion Williamson breaking through his shoe which led to a knee injury came the last time these two teams met. Williamson remains sidelined still from the injury but is expected back soon.
Marques Bolden’s 2018-19 Season
While the 6-foot-11 big man had a slow start to his collegiate career with Duke, he finally has seen an extended workload this year and consistent minutes. Bolden’s playing time increased over the first three seasons, jumping from 6.5 to 12.9 and finally up to 19.9 minutes through 30 games this season.
Although Bolden hasn’t been asked to do much from a scoring perspective due to the high-volume scoring Duke’s freshmen provide, he’s managed to do a little of everything this year. To this point in the year, the junior has posted marks of 6.0 points, 4.8 rebounds and 1.8 blocks per game while shooting 60.4 percent from the field.
We’ll update this post as additional information on Bolden’s injury comes to light, but there may not be anything definitive until after the game or even tomorrow.
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