And I am going to be out with a cranial fracture from banging my head against the freaking wall.
Tyler Zeller has been diagnosed with a stress fracture in his right foot according to Roy Williams. Zeller did not play versus Clemson and was examined back in Chapel Hill on Thursday following the Heels journey the Mines of Moria. The prognosis is four to six weeks which is another huge chunk of the season Zeller will miss. Maybe Zeller should have taken the redshirt last season after all.
Certainly this impacts post depth and Zeller had some good moments. I am sure he would have been effective against certain ACC teams due to his size and skills. Yeah, his ability to hold onto the ball was in question but name me a Tar Heel big man right now where that is not a question? Anyway, it sucks for him since he will effectively lose another month and a half of playing time after losing two and half months last season.
One more thing. Can we seriously look at the Dean Dome floor and practice facilities? I lost count of the number of foot/shin injuries suffered by Tar Heel players in the past four years or so. Yes, some of them are basketball injuries like sprained ankles or freak ones such as Ty Lawson running into a basket support. Still, this is starting to look like an epidemic.
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I saw a piece last year on ESPN….Hardwood Heavens???? They showed how the floor in the Dean Dome was constructed. Seems like it has some sort of spring system under the floor that was supposed to keep things like this from happening. But it has been something like 25 years since it was built. If it were the floor system, wouldn’t we have seen this year after year after year? Have their shoes changed? Either way, I agree this is starting to look like an epidemic.
Just in case anyone is wondering, Zeller has already played too many games to redshirt.
Yeah, that’s why I mentioned him redshirting last season so he would still have three more even with this one going bad. This season will be lost to him. If you take the max time indicated he won’t see the court again until March and there won’t be much basketball left at that point to get back into the flow.
Darn. I really thought Zeller could be the answer to the lack of production from Deon Thompson (unless we are playing cupcakes, against whom Deon looks like a star).
I thought the spring air floor in the Smith Center was supposed to reduce injuries. The Heels seem to have about the same % as other teams (e.g. Frasor and Degand both blew out their knees at about the same time playing on 2 different style courts). The story is the team played on an away court with one of these floors (can’t remember where – hopefully someone knows the story), and demanded it for the Smith Center and it was a late addition. I think it mainly cushions impacts when players fall.
At least Ginyard can tell Z what to expect… we knew his experience would be valuable, but never suspected this would be the reason.
Maybe Roy is working them too hard?
At least now we can see perhaps if Henson can do anything if he gets some more playing time. It is not as though Zeller was racking up many minutes anyway, which makes you wonder if he had a tender foot for a while.
It is interesting to think that Zeller will almost certainly end up staying at UNC for 4 years now after so many people thought that it was a no-brainer for him to come back last year since he was certain to leave UNC for the pro’s early anyway. I was against his coming back but it did seem to give many fans, if not the team, some confidence going down the stretch. I don’t think he averaged more than five minutes or so a game after he came back, though.