The Duke Blue Devils pulled off one of the most stunning victories of this college basketball season a few weeks ago when they beat North Carolina in Chapel Hill with just five players for the majority of the second half. The rematch took place Saturday night, this time at Cameron Indoor Stadium, and Duke lost by four.
The loss to their arch rivals on their home court may not have been the worst part of the Duke basketball team's day, though. That might be the fact that senior forward Amile Jefferson has been ruled out for the rest of the season due to his broken foot.
Jefferson has not played in a game since early December, but all along, there had been some hope that he would be able to get back for at least the NCAA tournament. As time passed, though, Jefferson's foot did not heal properly and he was still feeling pain when he was running, so Duke has just decided to hold him out for the rest of the year.
This is a huge blow for Duke's chances at repeating as National Champions this season, but there is a positive spin to this. As a result of Jefferson only playing in nine games this year, Duke plans to apply for a medical redshirt to give the senior one more year of eligibility. Should they be granted the redshirt, Jefferson will come back and play next season for a team that is set to be stacked.
While possibly getting Jefferson back for next year is a very good thing for the Blue Devils 2016-17 team, it is a major blow to this years team. Even when Jefferson was healthy, Duke wasn't a very deep basketball team, and now that he is out, Mike Krzyzewski only plays seven guys, and one of those seven guys, Chase Jeter, averages less than eight minutes per game. Last years, Duke's team wasn't all that deep either, but this year, it is much worse.
Another area where not having Jefferson around hurts is on the glass. Jefferson was the team's best rebounder this season before getting hurt, and since he has been out, Duke has struggled in that area. This is evidenced by the fact that North Carolina killed Duke on the glass Saturday night, as they out rebounded them by 35 (!).
This Duke team still has some top end talent in Brandon Ingram and Naismith Player of the Year semifinalist Grayson Allen, but their flaws may now outweight this talent. There was always hope that Jefferson would be back, and when that happened, many people felt that Duke would be a real threat to repeat. Now that Jefferson won't be back, they won't be an easy out by any means, but their ceiling is significantly lower.
