Marquette’s Smart says Kolek is participating in full-court drills
Marquette coach Shaka Smart says star guard Tyler Kolek has been practicing in 5-on-5 drills this week as the 2023 Big East player of the year gets ready to return from an oblique injury.
Kolek has missed Marquette’s last six games, but Smart has expressed confidence the Associated Press All-america secondteam selection would be back for the NCAA Tournament. Marquette (25-9), the No. 2 seed in the South Region, faces Western Kentucky (22-11) on Friday in Indianapolis.
“He has gone live, he has gone 5-on-5 up-and-down fullcourt,” Smart said Wednesday before the team left campus. “He’s done a lot of good things.”
Kolek has 7.6 assists per game to rank second among all Division I players. The 6-foot-3 guard also is averaging 15 points and 4.7 rebounds.
He injured his oblique during a 91-69 victory over Providence on Feb. 28. Marquette went 3-3 in the games Kolek missed, with two of the losses coming to NCAA Tournament No. 1 seed Uconn.
Smart noted there would be an adjustment process for Kolek after missing three weeks, but the coach was encouraged by what he saw in practice.
“He looked like himself,” Smart said.
Kolek’s health also was an issue in last season’s NCAA Tournament. He injured his thumb in Marquette’s first-round victory over Vermont. Kolek continued to play but wasn’t nearly as effective as usual in a second-round loss to Michigan State.
A placard with Terrence Shannon Jr.’s name hung over a stall in the Illinois locker room at CHI Health Center on Wednesday. An empty folding chair was beneath it.
The Illini’s biggest star was nowhere to be found during the team’s March Madness media availability the day before it opens the NCAA Tournament against Morehead State.
Shannon has been the invisible man everywhere except on the basketball court since he was charged with rape or an alternative count of sexual battery in Kansas in December stemming from an alleged incident in September. He hasn’t spoken to the media since.
If his legal entanglement has been a distraction, his teammates said, he hasn’t shown it.
“Not at all,” Ty Rodgers said. “He’s kept it team first.”
Shannon averaged 34 points per game while earning Most Outstanding Player honors in the Big Ten Tournament. No player in the country who appeared in more than one game in a conference tournament had a higher average.
Illinois coach Brad Underwood said he had never seen Shannon play a better stretch of games. The Illini had to come back from double-digit deficits in the second halves of all three games to win the tournament, so the situation called for it.
“He’s doing what great players do in big moments, and that’s rise to the occasion,” Underwood said. “That was special watching that.”