Good news and bad news on injury front for South Carolina basketball
Three freshmen won’t play and his starting point guard has dealt with an ankle injury for chunks of the preseason, but it’s going take more than that for Frank Martin to panic about South Carolina’s depth heading into Tuesday’s season opener with USC Upstate.
“As long as I don’t have to check myself in, we’re all right,” Martin said. “If I have to check myself in, we got issues.”
Martin’s Monday news conference began with updates on Jermaine Couisnard (still sidelined by an academic issue), T.J. Moss (out with a foot injury), Alanzo Frink (progressing, but still out with a knee injury) and Tre Campbell (in a walking boot Monday, but will go Tuesday). The absences have caused Martin to add a roster member.
“Injuries have kind of deflated us a little bit in practice,” Martin said. “We’ve had 10 bodies, and that’s including the walk-on that we went and found on campus 10 days ago. … I had to find a guy on campus just walking around so we could have a 10th healthy body to practice with.”
That walk-on player is to be named, but add him to the following list of available players for Tuesday: A.J. Lawson, Hassani Gravett, Campbell, Justin Minaya, Felipe Haase, Nathan Nelson, Maik Kotsar, Keyshawn Bryant, Chris Silva and Jason Cudd.
“I’ll manage the game,” Martin said. “I want us to play a certain way. If I feel that we need to catch our breath a little bit, I might slow it down here or there.
“We’re still trying to get this team to find an identity, a personality. And you can practice all you want, you don’t figure that stuff out until you start playing games. … I’ll manage the game when it starts, according to how the game is flowing, for lack of better words.
“I’ll say this: All 10 guys have been practicing a lot the last two weeks. So they should be ready to go.”
Campbell, a graduate transfer from Georgetown, missed the majority of the second half of Carolina’s exhibition loss to Augusta on Oct. 26. The senior said Monday that his ankle’s “fine.”
“I’m definitely going to be able to play (Tuesday),” Campbell said.
His immediate backup, for now, is Lawson as Moss, a rookie PG, is unavailable for Tuesday and Friday’s game with Stony Brook, Martin said.
“We’re all trying to figure out what the situation is,” Martin said. “He hasn’t practiced in a week. He won’t practice this week. I’ll have a better feel by next week what it looks like.”
Frink, a 6-foot-6, 265-pound freshman forward, has been sidelined for over a month.
“He’s close,” Martin said. “Not there yet, but he’s close.”
The Gamecocks and Spartans tip-off at 7 p.m. inside Colonial Life Arena.
This story was originally published November 5, 2018 at 10:49 AM with the headline "Good news and bad news on injury front for South Carolina basketball."