Duke’s Alex O’Connell has surgery to repair eye injury

Duke sophomore guard Alex O’Connell had successful surgery to repair a broken eye socket injury, the school announced on Friday.

The 6-4 O’Connell was injured three minutes in to Duke’s first exhibition game during its Canadian tour on Aug. 15, when he was elbowed in the eye. He missed the next two games. Duke announced that Dr. David Powers performed the surgery on O’Connell Thursday.

O’Connell is expected to be ready for the start of practice in late September.

As a freshman last season, O’Connell played in 36 games for the 29-8 Blue Devils with one start. He made 47.7 percent of his shots, including 48.9 percent of his 3-pointers while averaging 3.3 points per game.

This story was originally published August 24, 2018 at 2:53 PM.