It looked like everything was going right for sophomore center Carlos Boozer.
After putting up 23 points at St. John's, 19 versus Georgia Tech and 20 against Wake Forest, Boozer looked to be on his way to another great night, recording 16 points and seven rebounds in 23 minutes.
Until the unthinkable happened.
With 11:01 remaining and the Blue Devils up 64-60 during last night's game against Maryland, Boozer abruptly asked for an injury timeout and hobbled off the floor. He made an attempt to play again, but then had to pull himself out and leave for the locker room.
"We'll confirm this tomorrow, but there's a good chance that he has a slight fracture in the third metatarsal in his right foot," Mike Krzyzewski said. "He got it scoped where you can take a quick read. It's disappointing, but we have to circle the wagons and get tougher."
Boozer could not be reached for comment because he was busy having his foot examined, however there is little chance that the Alaska native will play in this weekend's game against North Carolina.
"I don't know what [it means for the rest of the season]," Krzyzewski said. "I'm just guessing right now there is a chance he would not [play again] unless we got deep into the [NCAA] tournament. I don't want to speculate right now. I just know there's a chance [he won't play again this season], but we'll know more tomorrow. I would say the next couple weeks we're not going to have him-for the game Sunday, the ACC tournament and then, who knows?"
With Boozer gone and his backup Casey Sanders on the bench with four fouls, Krzyzewski's hands were tied. He originally put in third-string center Matt Christensen, but a combination of bad knees and Maryland center Lonny Baxter's strong inside presence forced the Blue Devils to go small again with freshman Chris Duhon.
It was a similar situation to what happened during Duke's 84-83 loss at Stanford in December. In both games, Shane Battier moved over to the five-spot and Mike Dunleavy and Nate James both playing more post-oriented roles, while Jason Williams and Duhon filled the backcourt.
This strategy works fine if the Blue Devils are hitting from the outside, but Duke shot only 15.8 percent from behind the arc in the second half and a mere 24.3 percent from the floor.
With Baxter dominating inside, the Blue Devils had a hard time getting more than one opportunity, and it was even more difficult for their guards to drive the lane without Boozer there to push Baxter out of the way.
"Duke is a great shooting team; when they are on their game, they shoot as well as any team in the country," Maryland coach Gary Williams said. "We're fortunate they didn't shoot well."
On the other end, Baxter easily controlled the inside, opening up more outside shots for the Terps and allowing him and Terence Morris to crash the boards.
Maryland, led by Juan Dixon's 28 points, also shot 53.1 percent in the second half, which only helped their cause.
"I don't want to use Carlos as the reason we lost," Krzyzewski said. "Maryland played better than we did and I think we should just deal with that."
Despite Krzyzewski's statement, it is hard to miss the fact that Maryland outscored Duke 31-16 after he left the game. and the team's unwillingness to take the ball inside until the last minute was a key factor in their demise.
Now the Blue Devils have to face a big Tar Heel team without their starting center. The contest will be a good litmus test to see if Duke is able to function without Boozer in the NCAA tournament.
"It is going to be tough to replace Carlos," Dunleavy said. "I hope Casey is ready to step up because we're really going to need him."
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