The inside-outside attack that has baffled the Big Ten this season took a serious blow Friday when Iowa team trainer John Albright made an announcement no one wanted to hear.
Albright said the Hawkeyes’ star guard, Luke Recker, will miss “at least six weeks or possibly more,” with a broken right kneecap. The injury occurred in No. 14 Iowa’s comeback victory over Indiana on Jan. 17, in which Recker exploded for 27 points against his former team.
The fracture, a small crack on the side of Recker’s kneecap, was likely caused by a collision with an opposing player’s knee, Albright said. Recker could return for the Big Ten tournament, which begins March 8.
Despite nagging knee tendonitis throughout the season, Recker leads Iowa (17-4, 6-2 Big Ten) with 18.1 points per game and has been named Big Ten Player of the Week twice.
“He’s a guy who late in the games that you can go to and know not only are you going to get a high percentage shot, but a shot he makes most of the time,” Iowa coach Steve Alford said. “He’s pulled us out of a lot of games already this year, so you lose that Big Ten leadership that he gives you on the floor.”
The combination of Recker’s accurate shooting and forward Reggie Evans’ brute strength in the paint had thrown Iowa into the Big Ten elite with Michigan State and Illinois. But without Recker’s long-range missiles, more pressure will fall on Evans and senior guard Dean Oliver.
After his team downed Minnesota 64-55 on Wednesday night, Alford felt Iowa’s supporting cast could handle Recker’s absence.
“I think we’re deep enough, I think our young players have gotten enough experience over the season,” Alford said. “So now they are going to be asked to step up their roles and I think they are ready for that.”
ALLISON OUT: Purdue coach Gene Keady wasted no time divulging secrets to the media Monday, opening his conference call with the announcement that center John Allison would be out indefinitely with a stress fracture in his right foot.
Allison had X-rays taken Monday that revealed the stress fracture, believed to have occurred in practice last week. Allison leads the Boilermakers in rebounds (5.6 rpg), blocks (2.8 bpg) and is third in scoring (10.9 ppg). In Saturday’s 72-55 loss to No. 4 Michigan State, Allison scored only three points in 21 minutes.
“We’ll have to suck it up and pick up where John left off,” Keady said. “We’re going to miss his inside play.”
The Boilermakers will need 6-foot-11 freshman center Kevin Garrity to fill in for Allison in the paint. This season Garrity has averaged seven minutes per game and is 6 for 18 from the field. Keady will also call upon forward Rodney Smith, who leads Purdue with 15.5 points per game.
“(Smith’s) a good attitude-guy, hard worker and gets better each year because of his ability to have that work ethic we’ve always had here with those players that become All-Big Ten,” Keady said.
SECOND LAP: Now that Big Ten teams have surpassed the halfway point in the conference season, only four and a half weeks remain until the Big Ten tournament. Many teams are now facing opponents for the second time.
When No. 16 Wisconsin hosts Purdue on Wednesday night, it will be teams’ second meeting of the season and sixth (including Big Ten and NCAA tournaments) in the past two years. Badgers interim coach Brad Soderberg spoke about the decreased importance of strategy in these rematches.
“In this league at this time of the year there aren’t many surprises,” Soderberg said. “Pretty much we all know what each other is going to do and it really becomes more of a players’ game than a coaches’ game.”
