Kolek leaves blowout with oblique injury
The calendar will flip to March on Friday, and the Marquette men’s basketball team looks ready for the biggest month in the sport.
But the Golden Eagles are going to need Tyler Kolek healthy.
The fifth-ranked Golden Eagles put on one of their best all-around performances of the season in a 91-69 victory over Providence on Wednesday night at Fiserv Forum.
Kolek, the reigning Big East player of the year, left the game in the second half with an oblique injury. Oblique muscles are in the abdominal area that run diagonally across a person’s trunk.
“Don’t know exactly the extent of his injury,” MU head coach Shaka Smart said. “But he went out there, you guys saw, he wasn’t able to stay in the game.”
Kolek had left the game briefly in the first half with a cut near his right eye that he suffered while making a threepointer. He returned with a small bandage.
The more serious injury came early in the second half.
“He said that he made a pass and kind of twisted his body and he just felt it,” Smart said. “I didn’t see it when it happened. But he’s with the training staff now.”
Kolek checked himself out of the game at the 15:12 mark and walked to an arena tunnel with members of the MU training staff. He returned to the bench and checked back in with 12:44 left. But after trying to make a one-handed pass, Kolek subbed out again and headed to the locker room. He didn’t return.
MU (22-6, 13-4 Big East ) set the tone by stopping the Friars (18-10, 9-8) on their first six possessions. That is classified as a “skunk” in the parlance of Smart.
The Golden Eagles added another skunk a few minutes later. MU stormed to a 27-4 advantage, and the result was never in doubt.
“I think it’s mostly just guys being connected to make the next play that’s required,” Smart said. “Because we rotate a lot. We fly around a lot. We help each other.
“It’s not just, hey, I’ll take my guy and you got your guy. Every man for himself. We try to really, really be one unit. Five guys guarding the ball. I think that tonight our guys did a phenomenal job of that in the first half. Not as good in the second half. First half, probably as good of a half as we’ve had defensively.”
Chase Ross is one of MU’s best defensive stoppers, and he’s seen his team improve on that end of the court as the postseason looms. The Golden Eagles lost at Providence, 72-57, on Dec. 19.
“We’ve just been locking in on the smaller details in practice now,” Ross said. “We actually do this one drill, where it’s imaginary. We play defense on imaginary players. So I feel like that’s translating to the game, helping us move when the ball moves and just helping out each other and just guard as five.”
Ross has been banged up a lot this season, missing five games with a separated left shoulder early in the Big East season. He’s also been battling a left leg injury.
“It’s like the top of my leg,” Ross said. “I had like a big knot that turned into a contusion on the top of my leg.”
He felt good enough to play after the team’s shootaround, and he had an efficient game with 4-for-7 shooting, including 3 of 4 on threes, and 12 points.
“Just taking what the defense gives to me,” Ross said. “If they want to sag off me, I’ll shoot it. If they want to come up, I’ll drive it.”
The versatile Ross could be an important player for MU in the postseason.
“I’m really pleased with his progress,” Smart said. “He’s really come into his own as an offensive player.
“He’s taking on challenges as a defensive player. He’s been pretty banged up, even more than you know, a lot of our guys are. When you play in this league, and I would say this is true for Providence and any other Big East team, there’s just a ton of bumps and bruises and different things that occur that I would say 80 or 90% of guys fight through and be able to play.”
Stevie Mitchell, so often the team’s catalyst on defense, scored 12 points on 5-for-6 shooting in the first half.
“The same Stevie Mitchell,” Ross said. “The dog. A hound. Anything you need from him, he’s going to do it. Offense or defense. He’s a pretty good player.”
Mitchell didn’t score in the second half, but he and Ross were joined as double-digit scorers by Kam Jones (17 points), David Joplin (13) and Kolek (12).
That depth will be key as the Golden Eagles enter a big stretch with a game at No. 12 Creighton on Saturday and the home finale vs. third-ranked Connecticut on Wednesday.
But the most important thing is Kolek’s health.
“The key for us is being there for one another,” Smart said of Saturday’s game in Omaha, Nebraska. “And having a genuine belief in each other and in what we’re trying to do.
“Even amidst the circumstances and the twists and turns.”