CHARLOTTE — The days of treatment have been long. The questions have been constant.

Kyrie Irving, Duke’s freshman point guard, has been surprised by the attention paid to his injured right toe.

But the toe caused him to miss 26 games and took Duke from a national championship favorite to merely a national title contender. So the excitement of his return, from fans to
Duke’s players and coaches, is understandable.

“The addition of him going out there,” Michigan point guard Darius Morris said. “Gives you something else to worry about.”

For Michigan, which faces top-seeded Duke in the Round of 32 of the NCAA tournament, it is another of the many talented faces on the Duke roster.

The New Jersey native said he’s in the “high 90’s” as far as his health goes, with the only drawback being conditioning.

It is why Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski only played him around 20 minutes in the Blue Devils Round of 64 win over Hampton. In that time, though, he scored a team-high 14 points.

“I don’t think people really expected it. I didn’t really expect it,” Irving said. “I didn’t know I was going to be our leading scorer, didn’t plan to do that.

“My phone was buzzing a little bit and Twitter was a little active.”

It’s not completely surprising, though.

Irving’s toe has been the most talked about thing in this Charlotte sub-regional.
Krzyzewski had almost an entire toe-related press conference Thursday before playing Hampton.

Irving has been mobbed by reporters, all asking variations of the same question: How’s the toe?

“I wish I had a stamp to put in notebooks to answer all the questions,” Irving said. “Most of (the answers) are ‘I feel good.’ ‘I’m fine.’ ‘I’m good.’ ‘I’m not sore. I’m fine.’ ‘I wear a shank in my shoe.’ ‘I wear an orthotic.’ ‘I have a special Nike shoe.’ Same questions, just asked different ways.”

Irving said he’s going to be glad when people stop asking about the toe. That will likely mean it is totally healthy. His teammates, though, are just glad he’s well enough to play and try to help Duke repeat as national champions.

“It’s definitely a lot of questions about a toe,” Duke senior Nolan Smith said. “But I’m a big fan of his toe and I’m glad his toe is healthy now.”

Michael Rothstein covers University of Michigan basketball for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at (734) 623-2558, by e-mail at michaelrothstein@annarbor.com or follow along on Twitter @mikerothstein