BleedGopher
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per Jake:
As Minnesota’s once-promising season continues to spiral downward, there are a number of reasons we can point to for their rapid demise. Without question, though, the number one culprit for the Gophers’ collapse is injuries.
Outside of Reggie Lynch—whose college career is very likely over for well-documented reasons—every player in their top six has dealt with injuries of varying degree. An injury bug that widespread would impact any team negatively, but for a top-heavy Minnesota squad, it’s been particularly damaging.
Eric Curry’s absence has been written about all season. Curry would have served as the sixth man on what’s turned out to be a very thin bench, but after tearing his ACL over the summer, he’s missing the season. The rest of the team now resembles a MASH unit, with Minnesota’s four primary scorers playing hurt.
Dupree McBrayer’s stress reaction in his leg is so bad that he hasn’t been practicing and wears a walking boot between games. In Tuesday’s loss to Northwestern, he landed hard on the leg and had to be helped off the floor. That he returned in the second half and played through obvious pain is a testament to his toughness, but he clearly lacks the explosiveness he typically displays. Amir Coffey missed five games with a shoulder injury—during which the Gophers went 1-4—and also isn’t practicing as he continues to rehab, returning ahead of schedule Saturday to try to help the team. Nate Mason injured his ankle on December 23 against FAU, and missed the ensuing Harvard game. A couple of times this season, most notably against Maryland, he also appeared to have aggravated the hip injury he suffered in the NCAA tournament last year that required surgery, but continues to gut it out during his senior year. Like McBrayer, Mason’s displaying a lot of toughness, but clearly isn’t 100%. He’s still putting up big numbers offensively, but has struggled at times keeping up with quick point guards. Until Saturday, Jordan Murphy was the one Gopher who appeared immune to the injury bug, but he turned his ankle at Madison Square Garden and had to be helped off the floor, though he did return a few minutes later.
Add it all up and you have two players who are out (Lynch, Curry), two who aren’t practicing (Coffey, McBrayer), and two who are playing through pain (Mason, Murphy). Those six are essentially their entire team, in terms of meaningful productivity. Only the bench has been relatively injury free. Lynch’s issues are separate, but it’s fair to say that the confluence of injuries is extraordinarily bad luck, and has forced Richard Pitino to practice with a depleted team as he tries to nurse them back to health.
The rash of injuries would be bad at any time, but it’s struck at arguably the worst time of the season. Minnesota just finished a stretch in which they played five games in eleven days, including a week-long three game east coast road trip. It’s certainly not shocking they went 1-4 during that stretch.
A deeper dive into those five games reveals that Minnesota generally stayed competitive through the first half, before fading late. Against Maryland, they led by three early in the second half, before being outscored 48-34 to close the game. Against Ohio State, they opened up a 20-10 lead to start the game, and trailed by just seven at the half, but scored just 18 second half points in a blowout loss. Against Northwestern, they led by 10 in the first half and 5 with 15 minutes left in the second, then got outscored 34-21 to close the game.
“We’re obviously undermanned,” said Pitino after the Northwestern game. “And we got tired and we wore down.”
http://www.1500espn.com/gophers-2/2018/01/gophers-notebook-injuries-continue-cripple-minnesota/
Go Gophers!!
As Minnesota’s once-promising season continues to spiral downward, there are a number of reasons we can point to for their rapid demise. Without question, though, the number one culprit for the Gophers’ collapse is injuries.
Outside of Reggie Lynch—whose college career is very likely over for well-documented reasons—every player in their top six has dealt with injuries of varying degree. An injury bug that widespread would impact any team negatively, but for a top-heavy Minnesota squad, it’s been particularly damaging.
Eric Curry’s absence has been written about all season. Curry would have served as the sixth man on what’s turned out to be a very thin bench, but after tearing his ACL over the summer, he’s missing the season. The rest of the team now resembles a MASH unit, with Minnesota’s four primary scorers playing hurt.
Dupree McBrayer’s stress reaction in his leg is so bad that he hasn’t been practicing and wears a walking boot between games. In Tuesday’s loss to Northwestern, he landed hard on the leg and had to be helped off the floor. That he returned in the second half and played through obvious pain is a testament to his toughness, but he clearly lacks the explosiveness he typically displays. Amir Coffey missed five games with a shoulder injury—during which the Gophers went 1-4—and also isn’t practicing as he continues to rehab, returning ahead of schedule Saturday to try to help the team. Nate Mason injured his ankle on December 23 against FAU, and missed the ensuing Harvard game. A couple of times this season, most notably against Maryland, he also appeared to have aggravated the hip injury he suffered in the NCAA tournament last year that required surgery, but continues to gut it out during his senior year. Like McBrayer, Mason’s displaying a lot of toughness, but clearly isn’t 100%. He’s still putting up big numbers offensively, but has struggled at times keeping up with quick point guards. Until Saturday, Jordan Murphy was the one Gopher who appeared immune to the injury bug, but he turned his ankle at Madison Square Garden and had to be helped off the floor, though he did return a few minutes later.
Add it all up and you have two players who are out (Lynch, Curry), two who aren’t practicing (Coffey, McBrayer), and two who are playing through pain (Mason, Murphy). Those six are essentially their entire team, in terms of meaningful productivity. Only the bench has been relatively injury free. Lynch’s issues are separate, but it’s fair to say that the confluence of injuries is extraordinarily bad luck, and has forced Richard Pitino to practice with a depleted team as he tries to nurse them back to health.
The rash of injuries would be bad at any time, but it’s struck at arguably the worst time of the season. Minnesota just finished a stretch in which they played five games in eleven days, including a week-long three game east coast road trip. It’s certainly not shocking they went 1-4 during that stretch.
A deeper dive into those five games reveals that Minnesota generally stayed competitive through the first half, before fading late. Against Maryland, they led by three early in the second half, before being outscored 48-34 to close the game. Against Ohio State, they opened up a 20-10 lead to start the game, and trailed by just seven at the half, but scored just 18 second half points in a blowout loss. Against Northwestern, they led by 10 in the first half and 5 with 15 minutes left in the second, then got outscored 34-21 to close the game.
“We’re obviously undermanned,” said Pitino after the Northwestern game. “And we got tired and we wore down.”
http://www.1500espn.com/gophers-2/2018/01/gophers-notebook-injuries-continue-cripple-minnesota/
Go Gophers!!
