[Rosiak's Blog] Fitzgerald's injury

[ToddRosiakSays]

Fitzgerald's injury

Coach Tom Crean said following his post-game news conference that senior forward Dan Fitzgerald was held out of the UWM game because of a sprained left wrist he suffered earlier in the week in practice.

"We're just treating it daily," Crean said. "It happened in practice. He fell when we were scrimmaging the other day, just in the course of the action."

Early indications are the injury isn't anything that should keep Fitzgerald out long-term.

"We're hopeful it's not," said Crean. "I'm glad we have some time off now, to give it a chance to heal."

Crean also said he didn't have a handle on whether Fitzgerald would be ready to go a week from Saturday, when MU travels to Madison to take on Wisconsin.

"Not yet," he said. "We've done all the X-rays and MRIs. It's just going to take a little time."

Although Fitzgerald's injury wound up not having an effect on the outcome of the game, Crean said it did alter his game-planning a bit. One beneficiary of that was freshman guard Scott Christopherson, who returned after a roughly three-week absence due to knee surgery.

"What we tried to do is because we knew Scott was going to be available was to give him some time at the 4," said Crean. "But nobody is going to replace Lazar (Hayward) and Dan taking the ball out of bounds."

As far as Christopherson's return against UWM - he had two points and three rebounds in seven minutes - Crean appeared pleased, especially considering that there had been talk of possibly redshirting the La Crosse Aquinas product had his rehabiltation not gone smoothly.

"Rusty, like he hadn't played," he said when asked how Christopherson looked. "Little slow to react, little slow to get a rebound. But I thought when he went back in during the second half he did a nice job."

And as far as the addition of freshman guard Robert Frozena as a walk-on Friday, Crean said he had a message for the Menasha St. Mary's product before giving him a uniform.

"I told him, 'You're on a 10-day contract," Crean quipped.

http://blogs.jsonline.com/muhoops/archive/2007/11/30/fitzgerald-s-injury.aspx

[TallTitan34]

Well the injury sounds a lot better than it was being made out to be.  Here's to a quick recovery!  I'm sure Fitz would have loved being in that streak of 3-pointers we put up at the end of the first half.

[Knight Commission]

The tone sounds alot like how they handled McNeal's injury at the end of last year. I would not be so sure its a minor injury.

[mu_hilltopper]

True, Knight Commish.  No mention of Fitz' surgery in Rosiak's post, yet it's been mentioned via two interactions, one a prof, and one Fitz himself to a poster.  Very close to the same thing with McNeal, no mention of his surgery.

Now, health-wise, that may be where the similarities end.  Fitz could be back for UW, let's hope.

[4everwarriors]

truth serum for Xmas. While he technically isn't lying, he certainly is hiding the use of scapels. Maybe Fitzgerald did hurt his wrist practicing karate chops to wood blocks.

[mviale]

sounds like Frozena is an outside threat - top ten scorer in Wisconsin HS hoops LY.  Averaged 23.8 pts per game

Robert Frozena, St. Mary Central, 6-2, Sr., guard/forward: First team all-Olympian Conference and one of the state's top 10 scorers at 23.8 points per game … Also averaged seven rebounds and four steals per game … Led SMC to a 15-7 record despite the team using as little as a six-man rotation with its uptempo offense and pressing defense … Honorable mention on the WBCA Division 3 all-state team … His 1,226 career points is seventh-best in SMC history … "I think his stats show that he might be the area's best player," SMC coach Mark Ziebell said. "We relied on him throughout the year."

[4everwarriors]

will never get any PT. He's a practice player and that's all.

[Avenue Commons]

Fitzgerald's injury

And as far as the addition of freshman guard Robert Frozena as a walk-on Friday, Crean said he had a message for the Menasha St. Mary's product before giving him a uniform.

"I told him, 'You're on a 10-day contract," Crean quipped.

http://blogs.jsonline.com/muhoops/archive/2007/11/30/fitzgerald-s-injury.aspx

Come on, Crean. Let the kid stay on the team.