Second-ranked UVA was 20-1 with a halftime lead over then-#9 Louisville on Feb. 7 when Justin Anderson was lost for four weeks with a broken finger on his shooting hand.
Anderson had entered that game was the Cavs’ leading scorer and was an All-ACC, All-America and Naismith Player of the Year candidate. Lose a guy like Anderson, who is shooting 48.4 percent from three-point range, is the team’s best threat from the perimeter to get to the rim, and is an athletic presence on defense, and even the #2 team in the country can expect to go on a slide figuring out how to adjust its rotation and redistribute the scoring and defensive load.
As much as fans, looking at the schedule, told themselves that the ‘Hoos would be fine, you knew instantly that it was going to be anything but easy, and while that has turned out to be true, UVA is now 5-0 with Anderson on the sidelines.
For some perspective on how that stacks up to some other top college programs dealing with their own key injuries, we can look first down I-64 to #25 VCU, which lost starting point guard Briante Weber late in a home loss to Richmond on Jan. 31.
The Rams then lost shooting guard Treveon Graham in their next outing, a win at George Mason, and with both Graham and Weber out, VCU lost its next two, to St. Bonaventure and LaSalle, but since Graham’s return, the team has won three in a row to pull into a tie for first in the Atlantic 10.
#18 Butler lost double-figure scorer Andrew Chrabascz in a loss at #6 Villanova on Feb. 14, and the Bulldogs survived sub-.500 Creighton in a two-point win two days later, before being pasted on the road at Xavier on Saturday.
The loss dropped Butler into a tie for third in the Big East, three games back of ‘Nova.
#4 Duke was able to handle Clemson, 78-56, on Saturday without its player-of-the-year candidate, Jahlil Okafor, who sprained his ankle late in the first half of the Blue Devils’ 92-90 overtime win over UNC. Okafor was able to finish out the UNC game, but was on the bench for Clemson, and is questionable for Duke’s next game, at Virginia Tech on Wednesday.
After that road trip, Duke returns home to host Syracuse on Saturday and Wake Forest on March 4 before the regular-season finale with Carolina on March 7.
Not that Okafor is expected to be out anywhere near that long, but you can look at the schedule leading into the UNC finale and see some breathing room were the big man to need some time to get the ankle back to 100 percent.
One last injury look-in: #5 Wisconsin played Rutgers on Jan. 11 without player-of-the-year candidate Frank Kaminsky, out for that game with a concussion, then lost guard Traevon Jackson to a leg injury early in the second half, before losing in a shocker (to a team that scored 26 points in a loss to Virginia in November).
– Story by Chris Graham
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