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Completely out of nowhere, Northwestern basketball just announced that Drew Crawford is out for the rest of the season.
I'll just quote from the NU sports article:
Crawford has been diagnosed with having a torn labrum. He is eligible to seek a medical hardship waiver.
"Drew's situation is similar to Tre Demps' a year ago," Carmody said. "Drew aggravated a previous injury in early September and attempted to play through it, but it just hasn't responded as we all would have liked.
This would explain why Crawford's performance has been below his extremely high standard, and also explains that weird brace on his shoulder.
I'm assuming the medical hardship waiver (which would allow him to gain a fifth year of eligibility next season) is a mere formality at this point, because if not, letting him play 10 games only to shut him down now was a colossal error in judgement from someone. Either way, it's hard to imagine Northwestern even making it to the NIT without Crawford in the lineup the rest of this season, let alone the NCAA tournament.