David Mirkovic suffers left foot injury
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Two thoughts.
1. It will be a positive for a frosh or two to get minutes if/when Mirk is sidelined. Even practice time with the first unit will be quite valuable.
2. In my mind, the biggest question to be answered when Mirk returns is at what level will he return? Also, will he be able to reach the potential this season that he could without the injury. Much depends on how engaged he remains while not able to do physical running and jumping. But that does not limit his spot shooting practice much, if at all. Or his bench press and any other conditioning/body building work he can put in.
My best guess from what we know is that his pre-season passion might even be elevated by this setback and that he will fill his physical practice downtime with many equal effort in many other ways. He could be the Mirk we want to see by Jan.....or maybe sooner.
So to my fellow Illini fans, keep your chin up and hang on to your hat. This season should still be a really good...even great...one.
1. It will be a positive for a frosh or two to get minutes if/when Mirk is sidelined. Even practice time with the first unit will be quite valuable.
2. In my mind, the biggest question to be answered when Mirk returns is at what level will he return? Also, will he be able to reach the potential this season that he could without the injury. Much depends on how engaged he remains while not able to do physical running and jumping. But that does not limit his spot shooting practice much, if at all. Or his bench press and any other conditioning/body building work he can put in.
My best guess from what we know is that his pre-season passion might even be elevated by this setback and that he will fill his physical practice downtime with many equal effort in many other ways. He could be the Mirk we want to see by Jan.....or maybe sooner.
So to my fellow Illini fans, keep your chin up and hang on to your hat. This season should still be a really good...even great...one.
There's nothing conflicting. He will be off his feet for about 6 weeks or so. I expect him to start building back up at the end of September. He may miss a game or two but I would be pretty surprised if he's not back for Texas Tech.
I'll say this as well-the staff is REALLY high on Ethan Brown long term so I could see them getting him more reps in practice once the team starts back up in late August until October when Mirk should hopefully be eased back in.
With the available news, I dont think the worry is he won't be physically back. Its that he will be 75% of peak mirk and team will be like 82.7 % of peak due to lost practice time with our best player. We were pretty optimistic about putting a beat down vs uconn, missouri, tt, unc, and potentially duke. Health wise now unc lines up and the rest are, let's just say.....potentially very problematic.
Joel Goodson
- it's all ball bearings, nowadays
yep. gotta make lemons out of lemonade
I talked myself into some fun Vaaks + Coleman + Andrej + Lincoln + Z fast-paced lineups.
Texas Tech got a ton better with the (likely) returns of Atwell and Darron Williams.
They're probably not as good as Duke, but will be really solid.
I don't think we'll be favored if Mirk doesnt play.
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DeonThomas
- South Carolina
Good call! (I attended Spamalot just 4 days ago, btw.)
I don't think we're going 0-fer with this group without David. He'll elevate us, but we're not going to be an easy W for anyone. And I think the games we could lose are ones that would be tough wins even with him. Duke on the road this year is a tall order --they're a National Champ level talent. UConn on a (technically) neutral court isn't far behind. Quad 1A games aren't damaging.
What games are you expecting to lose without him that we're winning with him?
I think UConn and Texas Tech were at least 50/50 games with him.
Without him, we're comparatively a worse team thàn those two opponents.
If it's going to take 6-8 weeks for the bone to heal and the boot to come off -- then there's still 5 weeks after that before the season starts (to get re-acclimated).
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Mirk is going to apply the same level of tenacity to getting back as he was to working hard this summer.
Sometimes when you have these injuries, guys don't work as hard as they need to.
I would not be shocked if Mirk beats the timeline even more than expected, we are talking about a guy who would die before missing games.
Sometimes when you have these injuries, guys don't work as hard as they need to.
I would not be shocked if Mirk beats the timeline even more than expected, we are talking about a guy who would die before missing games.
Correct. Almost 7 weeks if you don't include the two buy games. That gives him plenty of time.
Is this ideal? No. It's not the end of the world though, if something like this was going to happen early August was the time for it to happen.
Insiders: “he’s going to rest his foot for a solid 6, maybe 8, weeks at the direction of our top of the line health and fitness training staff. From there easing back into workouts and back for first week of games. Perhaps miss the first two at most.”
Fans: “oh well great! He’ll be out for the entire season!”
New Reports: “A successful surgery with a full recovery. Should be about 6-8 weeks until he’s back on the court getting reps in. Will miss 2 of the 3 last months of the off season, but all in all not really a derailment of the season expected.”
Fans: “ugh just write off the season I guess. He’ll be gone for the first 1-3 months of the season, and we won’t win a game!”
Pundits & Talking Heads: “our intel is pretty optimistic and about 6-8 weeks is a good time frame before he gets a health check and can get back into shape to start off the year. Maybe he misses a game or two if that.”
Fans: “omg he’s gonna be out until March!!!”
——
Sorry, it seems like most reports are all saying the same thing? 6-8 weeks or so? he's got the best staff money can buy at the moment helping that timeline. I just don’t understand why so many are claiming he’s out the whole season, season is ruined, or he’ll be out for months even after the season starts…
Chill y’all. Things are sounding pretty optimistic all things considered.
The argument I can see is what percentage of himself will he be at the start of the season, sure. I imagine if it’s 6-8 weeks, he’s not starting from scratch he’ll be anywhere from 50-65? 70? And only going up from there by the time December rolls around when we’ve got our big games. I don’t see how he wouldn’t be close to 100% when it truly matters most. Further, it’s not like he’s going to be in solitary confinement the whole time. You really think the guy who bleeds orange and blue, and is all about the team isn’t going to be in on every practice absorbing all that he can to help transition back in when ready?
Come on now
Fans: “oh well great! He’ll be out for the entire season!”
New Reports: “A successful surgery with a full recovery. Should be about 6-8 weeks until he’s back on the court getting reps in. Will miss 2 of the 3 last months of the off season, but all in all not really a derailment of the season expected.”
Fans: “ugh just write off the season I guess. He’ll be gone for the first 1-3 months of the season, and we won’t win a game!”
Pundits & Talking Heads: “our intel is pretty optimistic and about 6-8 weeks is a good time frame before he gets a health check and can get back into shape to start off the year. Maybe he misses a game or two if that.”
Fans: “omg he’s gonna be out until March!!!”
——
Sorry, it seems like most reports are all saying the same thing? 6-8 weeks or so? he's got the best staff money can buy at the moment helping that timeline. I just don’t understand why so many are claiming he’s out the whole season, season is ruined, or he’ll be out for months even after the season starts…
Chill y’all. Things are sounding pretty optimistic all things considered.
The argument I can see is what percentage of himself will he be at the start of the season, sure. I imagine if it’s 6-8 weeks, he’s not starting from scratch he’ll be anywhere from 50-65? 70? And only going up from there by the time December rolls around when we’ve got our big games. I don’t see how he wouldn’t be close to 100% when it truly matters most. Further, it’s not like he’s going to be in solitary confinement the whole time. You really think the guy who bleeds orange and blue, and is all about the team isn’t going to be in on every practice absorbing all that he can to help transition back in when ready?
Come on now
That's exactly where I'm at.
I'm not sure of what Mizzou has this year, but that's always an emotionally charged game. Mirk brings stability and experience on a big stage and again, he's a matchup nightmare.
Thanks for all of the intel. There’s been a lot of speculation around his injury in here so it’s nice to have some reassurance.
My father-in-law has a good saying “why worry twice” that some folks might benefit from for cases like these haha
In a way we are lucky that:
1) the injury is not worst-case scenario (not a season ender).
2) the timing of it occouring during the summer limits the amount of season time missed.
Although we don't know the exact injury so direct comparisons are difficult to make, it should be noted Goode was out 15 weeks with his injury.
Homecoming 2019
- Chicago
Somehow managed to create two strawmen in one analogy, impressive
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
Using that exact math, he’d be back on Friday, November 13th against Sam Houston St. 3 days after the game against Texas Tech.
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Goode suffered the injury on Oct. 22 2022.
He returned Feb. 11 2023.
That's 112 days (exactly 16 weeks).
I do think the training/coaching staff will be more urgent with Mirk than Goode.
Luke could have also played about two weeks before that as well.
Was just paraphrasing
But maybe you weren't around for the Mirkovic draft convo that happened.
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