Duke starts practice for 2022-23 college basketball season with star freshman sidelined
With the first regular-season game 42 days away, NCAA rules allowed Duke and every other team that opens the season Nov. 7 to begin practicing Monday and start devoting 20 hours per week to the sport.
The Blue Devils did so with the health status of a key player still in question.
Dariq Whitehead, a 6-6 forward and possible NBA draft lottery pick next June, is still recovering from the fractured foot that required surgery in late August.
Rated the No. 8 prospect for the 2023 NBA Draft by CBSsports.com, Whitehead was injured during Duke’s offseason workouts. No longer on crutches, he was still wearing a boot on his right foot last weekend.
Freed from the boot, Whitehead was at practice Monday but didn’t participate in any five-on-five play. Instead, he’s working his rehabilitation with resistance bands and using an underwater treadmill. On Tuesday, he was passing the ball to teammates during drills and getting some shots up without jumping on his healing foot.
“Right now,” Whitehead said Tuesday, “it’s just more strengthening the foot up, like to walking without the boat, making sure we do drills on the side to strengthen that back up and make sure we get to where we left off originally.”
At the time of Whitehead’s surgery, the school said in a statement that Whitehead was “expected to play this fall.”
Jon Scheyer, beginning his first season as Duke’s head coach following Mike Krzyzewski’s retirement, said Whitehead had an X-ray on Tuesday that revealed good news with his recovery.
“Really positive news,” Scheyer said. “He’s going in a great direction. He’s right on schedule as far as recovery goes, if not even ahead.”
A five-star recruit from Newark, New Jersey, who played at Montverde Academy in Florida last season, Whitehead tweeted the day of his Aug. 30 surgery that he would “be back soon stronger and better than ever.”
As for having Whitehead back for the season-opener against Jacksonville on Nov. 7, Whitehead said he wants to play that night. But Scheyer said there’s no need to hurry the rehabilitation process.
“We’ll continue to monitor him and bring him along, obviously, as fast as we can,” Scheyer said. “We want him back out there, but as safely as possible. There’s no rush on our end.”
Duke’s staff is counting on major contributions from Whitehead, who joins 7-1 center Dereck Lively II and 6-10 center Kyle Filipowski as top-10 players from the 2022 class on the Blue Devils’ roster this season. They, along with 6-8 forward Mark Mitchell, 6-5 guard Jaden Schutt, 6-4 guard Tyrese Proctor and 7-1 center Christian Reeves, gave Duke the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class.
Duke’s only public scrimmage, part of the Countdown to Craziness event, is Oct. 21. The Blue Devils lone exhibition game is Nov. 2 against Fayetteville State at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
Back in 2016, Boston Celtics all-star forward Jayson Tatum suffered a similar injury to Whitehead during the preseason run-up to his lone season with Duke. Whitehead said he and Tatum discussed that, which gave Whitehead good feelings about what lies ahead.
“I went home and called my mom and told her,” Whitehead said. “Just knowing that someone who’s been in the same situation was able to talk to me and talk me through this helped me be more confident.”
This story was originally published September 27, 2022 at 9:20 AM with the headline "Duke starts practice for 2022-23 college basketball season with star freshman sidelined."