Marvin Bagley Left Duke’s Game Against Michigan State After A Nasty Eye Poke By A Teammate (UPDATE)

The most highly-anticipated game of the 2017-18 college basketball season tipped off on Tuesday night, as top-ranked Duke and No. 2 Michigan State faced off in the Champions Classic in Chicago. There were a number of players to watch if you want to check out the game’s collection of future pros, but few possess the hype of Blue Devils freshman Marvin Bagley III, who was the No. 1 recruit in America last year.

The issue was Bagley had to get taken into the locker room early in the game. He was going up for a rebound alongside another Duke player, Javin DeLaurier, and came down in pain after DeLaurier’s finger found its way into his right eye. Here’s a video of the incident, a warning that it’s not for the faint of heart.

Bagley was on the ground for some time, and Duke even put up a wall to try and keep the cameras from catching him as he was tended to by the team’s doctors.

There’s no word on whether Bagley will return to the game or if this injury will keep him sidelined for any period of time. Hopefully that’s not the case, as Bagley is one of the premier players in all of college basketball and widely viewed as one of the favorites to get selected with the No. 1 pick in the 2018 NBA Draft.

UPDATE: It was announced that Bagley won’t return to the Blue Devils’ game against the Spartans. While he was on the bench at the start of the second half, it was determined that he wouldn’t take the floor due to his eye injury.

This is really unfortunate, as it keeps a talented basketball player from showing what he can do in a marquee matchup. It was a good sign that he went back out onto Duke’s bench, and ideally this is something that holds him out of one game.