clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

So, Let Me Get This Straight...

Marquette head men's basketball coach Buzz Williams had some interesting quotes in a blog post by Michael Hunt last night.

If you buy something from an SB Nation link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.

Mary Langenfeld-USA TODAY Sports

The blog post in question is an update on the injuries to Duane Wilson and Steve Taylor, Jr., as well as the oft-suspended Todd Mayo, as Marquette returns to practice during finals week.

Buzz had this to say about Wilson following his third full practice after being medically cleared to return from a stress fracture in his left leg:

"I think the right thing to do is go through practice for a week and see how his body absorbs it," Williams said. "I think he's paying attention and trying to pick things up. I appreciate his attitude, but I want to see how his body handles it and then see how he's doing emotionally and mentally.

"I don't to make a decision on someone's career just because a doctor says you're physically able to perform when you've missed 40 practices and nine games. I don't think that's fair to anybody. He's getting stronger, but anytime you get hurt there's a period of time when you can't do anything."

Roughly translated: Let's see how Wilson's body handles the rigors of his first week of college practice ever and we'll make a decision about him playing at all after that.

Moving on to Taylor, then. The sophomore forward had offseason surgery to remove a benign growth in his knee, but suffered atrophy in his leg muscles, which set his recovery back.

"I think he's doing better," Williams said. "He's been able to do more rehab and strength training. His issue is his quad is not 100%. That affects the rest of his lower body. It's kind of the same situation as with Duane. Keep rehabbing. He was able to go through the entire practice yesterday. Hopefully his body will continue to respond."

Ok. It seems like "not practicing" and "doing less rehab and strength training than he is now" and "he's not 100%" are things that could have been brought up last week in the two separate blog posts that Hunt wrote about people returning to practice. But hey, it's not like you told anyone about Mayo's suspension before that information had to be pried out of someone's cold dead hands during the Wisconsin game, so I shouldn't be surprised that the men's basketball office is being hush-hush about Taylor.

Especially when you take this next part into account. This quote from Buzz stems from a discussion about Mayo only responding when someone rattles his cage:

"In Steve's situation, he wasn't able to do everything in September and October," Williams said. "I started him the first two games in hopes that would give him some gas, just to change his gears a little bit. But he's just hurt. There's no way you can rattle someone who is not physically 100%."

So let me get this straight. Taylor wasn't able to be a full participant in practice and preseason workouts, but he was still cleared to participate in all of these activities. After seeing Taylor not be able to perform to expectations, someone decided that the best course of action was to "give him some gas" or "change his gears" or rattle his cage, and the best way to do this was to START HIM FOR THREE GAMES. After that didn't work and someone woke up and realized that he's, y'know, hurt and not just lollygagging like it seems someone thought, the new best plan was to NOT TELL ANYONE why Taylor was 1) out of the starting lineup and 2) barely playing at all. This led to the entire universe thinking, and justifiably so, that Buzz had completely lost his mind when he benched Taylor's nine rebound performance against Ohio State instead of Jake Thomas' 0-7 shooting performance in order to attempt to fix the offense.

And on top of all of this, there's going to be some crossover in the people who said that Taylor was cleared for participation and the people who said that Duane Wilson is cleared for participation. You'll forgive me if I'm not super confident in believing that we'll see Wilson on the court any time soon.