After an exciting 28-win season, the Vermont Catamounts reached the first round of the NCAA Tournament as the 13th seed. This drew a tough matchup with the four-seed Duke Blue Devils. But for TJ Long, it was a chance to play in his home state of New York at the Barclays Center.
Despite being Vermont’s leading scorer, the sophomore guard had a tough time adjusting to Duke’s defense in the 64-47 loss, but that was just the start of the nightmare.
With just over 90 seconds remaining, Long, No. 20, suffered a sudden knee injury and collapsed to the court, where he stayed for several moments writhing in pain
tj long injures himself on the fastbreak, prayers pic.twitter.com/6lV60TyZOU
— ◇ (@2MANYBRIDGES) March 23, 2024
There’s no word on the severity of Long’s setback, but so far, Vermont coach John Becker says the ‘hope is’ he avoided a ‘catastrophic’ knee injury. However, they’ll need to wait for imaging to know more. Long left the locker room on crutches.
He finished with three points after shooting 1-for-8 from the field, four rebounds, three assists, and a steal.
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