Horford Out This Week at Least, but Improving
According to a Rothstein article at Wolverine Nation and a Baumgardner article at annarbor.com, Jon Horford had an X-ray today, which showed some improvement, but it will still be at least a week before he can return fully to practice. So it sounds like there's a good chance Horford will return before the end of the season, although Beilein says a medical redshirt is still a possibility:
Beilein didn't rule out sitting Horford . . . for the remainder of the season to preserve a medical redshirt if he isn't fully healthy. He did, however, say they are going to try and see if he can start playing with Michigan as soon as possible. [from Rothstein article]
"But (there's) also a silver lining that he didn't play 12 or 13 games and you've used his redshirt up," Beilein said. "It's part of the thing when you have a foot injury like that, because you really don't know. You have to be careful with it, we do not want to use this season on an injured player. We've got to make sure he's in really good shape before we use him." [from Baumgardner article]
January 10th, 2012 at 4:43 PM ^
I would like to see Horford take a redshirt year. Big guys and foot problems can become chronic. I would hate to see Horford come back to play 5 minutes a game, only to re-injure himself and have a wasted year. Mclimans is serviceable enough to allow the coaches to take the cautious route with Horford.
January 10th, 2012 at 6:03 PM ^
It would be nice to space out our big men's years as well. Right now Morgan, Horford, McLimans and Christian are all sophomores.
January 10th, 2012 at 5:01 PM ^
McLimans doesn't back up JMo like JHo could. One more week until Horford practices likely means he does not return to action against top-conference-rebounding team, Sparty, on the 17th. Bummer. We can still beat little brother, but it will take very good preparation and execution of game plan. Hopefully, he's playing when we take on Ohio.
January 10th, 2012 at 6:38 PM ^
I'm not sure we should be calling him "JHo."
January 10th, 2012 at 8:35 PM ^
I have a feeling he's not coming back this year. Sounds like Beilein would have to be 100% convinced he wouldn't have to sit again and it doesn't sound like that's going to happen.
January 10th, 2012 at 9:09 PM ^
Too bad we could use an extra big man against MSU
January 11th, 2012 at 10:19 AM ^
IMO if he can play and be clear, play him. We beat IU if we have a healthy Horford. We simply didn't have the size. We have Morgan and NO ONE else when it comes to big men. Smotz is a SG trapped in a PF body.