Harry Giles did not produce any highlights in his four minutes on the floor Monday, but for him, just finishing the game healthy was an improvement on his last season opener.
Giles tore his ACL two minutes into the first game of his senior year of high school last year, an injury that kept the nation’s top recruit off the floor for 13 months until Duke’s 65-55 win against Tennessee State. Giles missed a shot on his first possession on the floor and did not record any other stats.
“It definitely is going to help my mental state just to know that I got off the court fine,” Giles said. “In my last first game, I didn’t make it off the court.”
The Winston-Salem, N.C., native was anxious to get on the floor for his season debut, and although he did not start, he checked in at the scorer’s table at the under-12 media timeout in the first half to draw a big cheer from the crowd at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
“The closer it got to the game, the more nervous I became,” Giles said. “Last night, I was good. This morning, I was like, I’m still good. But about, 2, 3 o’clock, we started getting with the pregame stuff. It’s starting to hit me a little bit. It was like, 'Oh man, I’m about to play today.'”
Giles was not on the court long enough to make much of an impact in his debut, and just started practicing with the team the day before the Dec. 10 game against UNLV and the Blue Devils' eight-day exam break. As he practices more, he could help bolster Duke’s frontcourt as he continues to develop chemistry with the team.
The Blue Devils outrebounded the Tigers 41-29, but 18 of those boards came from graduate student forward Amile Jefferson. Duke’s three players at least 6-foot-10 that played—Giles, freshman Marques Bolden and sophomore Chase Jeter—combined for just two rebounds in 20 minutes.
“Just like Amile, [Giles] is a really good rebounder, a very lively body and can protect the rim,” senior Matt Jones said. “He’s active, he’s unique and I’m waiting to see all he can do as well. We’re on his side. I know when he’s fully there and we get him acclimated and mesh as a team, he’s going to help us tremendously.”
But it may take some time for Giles to get fully healthy and get used to playing with his new teammates after spending all summer and fall rehabbing his knee instead of practicing.
During his four-minute stint Monday, Duke’s offense looked stagnant, with poor spacing on a few possessions resulting in forced shots. By the time Giles exited the game, a two-point Blue Devil lead had turned into a one-point deficit.
Giles is not the only player facing this challenge of fitting in with a team that was already playing well in late November and early December. Bolden was a non-factor in six scoreless minutes Monday—missing his only shot from the floor without notching a single rebound—and has struggled to find consistent playing time after he missed the first eight games of the season with a lower-leg injury.
“For Harry, just to go on the court tonight is good…. It’s just a matter of him being in shape,” Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “But it can’t be about him or Bolden or [Jayson] Tatum or whatever. It’s got to be about Duke. Just fit in. And they want to. It’s not like they don’t want to.”
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