Wisconsin's head coach Greg Gard met with the media ahead of the first exhibition of the season on Saturday. There's a lot swirling around the Wisconsin basketball program and things that are still yet to be decided. For example, the eligibility of Braeden Carrington (Gard is planning for him to be good to go) and who will get the starting five? How deep will the rotation be?
The other things are about injury news. We know that both Nolan Winter and Austin Rapp have had injuries. Winter even had offseason surgery to help get him ready for a big season, which he's hoping will prepare him for the NBA. Gard gave updates on both of those forwards and then gave some bad news on true freshman guard Josh Manchester.
Nolan Winter
Winter had ankle surgery as soon as last season ended. The star forward did it to prepare himself and ready himself for a big senior campaign. The timeline was always to be ready by the start of the season. Gard confirmed that Winter is right on track. His exact quote was: "Nolan's back in full throttle."
Will he play in the exhibition on Saturday against UW-Parkside? Gard sure made it sound like it, but don't be surprised if it's not a priority to give Winter a lot of minutes or even to hold him out entirely.
Austin Rapp
Rapp has been recovering this offseason from an injured knee. He also isn't expected to miss any of the season due to the knee injury, and his recovery has been on schedule. According to Gard, "Rapp will be coming full throttle this week." Gard added that he's not sure if Rapp is going on Saturday or not and that the decision will actually come from the medical team.
However, there's no fear of Rapp missing any of the regular season when the games count.
Josh Manchester
The big injury news that came out today was about true freshman guard Josh Manchester. The local player suffered a shoulder injury in practice recently. It was bad enough that he needed to have surgery, and he's going to be shut down for the entire season. This is frustrating for the young player, and while he wasn't expected to get much run this year, he still was a necessary member of the team. Whether that's on the scout team or even deep depth.
The depth at guard is extremely deep, especially if Braeden Carrington ends up getting fully cleared to play. There actually may be too much depth. Greg Gard even said that he's impressed by the depth he has to work with this season. "There's legitimately 12 guys right now that could and probably should be on the floor, and then how that works itself out." Gard said, "Some of that will be on myself and our staff's decision. Some of it will be on production, and some of it will be on health."
So, the injury updates are two good updates and one negative one before the season starts.
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