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A thin team gets thinner. We worried after Northwestern's loss to Iowa that Alex Olah and Jared Swopshire would miss time, and it turns out they likely both will. Here's the word from Teddy Greenstein:
Carmody: Alex Olah has a concussion. Won't be ready for Thurs game at OSU. #Northwestern
— Teddy Greenstein (@TeddyGreenstein) February 11, 2013
And in the more bad news dept ... Carmody also assumes Swopshire (right knee) can't play Thurs. Will get MRI results by noon.
— Teddy Greenstein (@TeddyGreenstein) February 11, 2013
So that's no Olah for sure, and they're waiting on an MRI from Swopshire which could reveal even worse news for down the road.
Suffice it to say, this isn't good. Right now NU's rotation for the Ohio State game projects as:
PG: Dave Sobolewski
SG: Tre Demps
SF: Reggie Hearn
PF: Kale Abrahamson
Bench: Alex Marcotullio, Nikola Cerina, walkons
Swop has been a strong find for his rent-a-season, and Olah is learning. You lose your starting center and power forward. Those were the two best rebounders on the team - Swop was the only guy on the squad nationally ranked in rebounding per Kenpom, and that's at No. 472 - and all of a sudden a team that struggled to rebound is a team without a chance in hell of grabbing a board.
Turner hasn't shown he can play 20 full minutes without fouling out, and Bill Carmody has yet to play Cerina for any period of time, even though he looks much better than Turner. Oh, and this is for a game Kenpom projects them as having a 10 percent chance of winning anyway.
I'll talk about this later, but this was supposed to be a Northwestern team with depth. You can't plan for injuries, but, man, this team has been absolutely ravaged.
Love this quote from Neil Hayes' piece in the Trib:
"The problem with Mike is he's undersized and he has been in foul trouble," Carmody said. "He has this tendency to foul guys a lot and that's a little scary."
Like I tweeted the other day, I like Turner better in foul trouble - he plays less.
Keep it locked and loaded here for updates, but for now, just prep for a Thursday beatdown to end all beatdowns. Remember when NU kept it close with a 6.5-ish man rotation against Ohio State with Mike Capocci playing major minutes? Yeah, don't see it happening on the road.