Cooper Flagg suffers eye injury in No. 2 Duke's victory - ESPN

DURHAM, N.C. — Duke players see star freshman Cooper Flagg's toughness on a regular basis and that was on display for everyone else Saturday night.

Flagg returned for the second half of the No. 2 Blue Devils' 100-65 victory over Florida State after leaving in the first half following a hard foul when he was poked in the eye.

«He was beat up and scratched up,» teammate Sion James said. «Cooper is one of the toughest guys I've ever played with. I trusted that if he was all right, he'd be back. He was back and better than ever.»

Coach Jon Scheyer described the injury as a bruised eyelid. The subject was personal for Scheyer, a Duke alum whose professional career ended overseas because of an eye injury.

«As a basketball player, you don't think about injuring your eye,» Scheyer said. «That doesn't cross your mind. I had never seen him look scared. I thought he was scared at first, rightfully so, because you don't know how serious or permanent.… I was really nervous about him.»

Flagg sat out more than 11 minutes to end the half, while the team's eye doctor checked on him. He was back on the court for the first 12 minutes of the second half, finishing the game with 16 points on 5-for-9 shooting. He wasn't made available to speak to reporters after the game.

«He had some vision issues in the first half and tested it out and he said he was good to go, and he was,» Scheyer said. "… He's so tough. His mom is yelling at him to rebound and defend if he's going back in the game, so I didn't have to say a whole lot."

Classmate Kon Knueppel said he was surprised Flagg was in action for the second half.

«To see him go down and stays down that worries you a little bit,» Knueppel said. «Just a couple of scratches on his face.»

For James,