Morgan sprained his right knee and won't play against Fordham on Sunday, but that's still good news for the Minutemen after what appeared to be a serious injury.
Jesse Morgan screams in pain as he collides with Saint Louis guard Kwamain Mitchell during the second half Thursday.
ST. LOUIS — It appeared initially that the University of Massachusetts basketball team’s season was about to take a major turn in the wrong direction Thursday night.
The 70-62 loss was plenty hard to swallow in and of itself, but what originally appeared to be a serious knee injury to starting guard Jesse Morgan, the team’s second-leading scorer, turned out to be only a knee sprain.
Consider it a bullet dodged for the Minutemen.
Morgan went down while driving to the right side of the lane just over a minute into the second half Thursday. As he planted his right leg, his knee buckled grotesquely, and he went to the floor writhing and screaming loudly in pain underneath the basket before being helped off the floor and to the locker room a few minutes later.
UMass trainer Dave Maclutsky said Morgan will be evaluated daily, but will not be available for the team’s game at Fordham on Sunday.
Jesse Morgan yells in pain after going down on the court with a knee injury Thursday.
Morgan’s scoring (14.5 points per game) will certainly be a loss, but point guard Chaz Williams also pointed out what might be overlooked by the casual fan — Morgan’s defense and spirit.
“He’s a great defender,” Williams said. “Jesse is one of our mentally strong players. Not having him out there, you kind of miss his spirit.”
While the obvious solution in Morgan’s absence is increased playing time for Freddie Riley, Williams suggested that Kellogg could have utilized his backup, freshman Trey Davis, during Thursday's loss
“Being that he was out, it would have been good to see Trey come in, and at least I’ll move to the two or something like that and make it much easier from a scoring standpoint,” Williams said.
LALANNE’S BIG DAY
Although the Minutemen came up short Thursday night, there were certainly a couple of encouraging signs.
One was there ability to fight through adversity and not get run off the floor after Morgan went down.
The other was the performance of center Cady Lalanne, who had 13 rebounds — seven of which came on the offensive end — and a career-high 18 points in the defeat.
“I thought he showed what I was expecting out of him when the season started, I expected him to be a double-double guy,” Kellogg said.
Those expectations were very evident in the preseason, but after a strong performance against Harvard in the season opener, Lalanne’s campaign has been marred by inconsistency and a one-game suspension for an arrest at an on-campus function.
Now, Kellogg said he wants to see Lalanne’s strong play continue.
“Now when he doesn’t do that I can get on him,” Kellogg said.