“Today’s Tom Izzo press conference is brought to you by injuries. Injuries: Will they ever leave Michigan State?”
It’s a fictional sponsor message, but an accurate one if the injury bug ran wanted his own ad space during this season. However, today had some good news about injuries, as Izzo said today will be a day his team hasn’t seen since early January.
“Well, those of you showing up to practice today will be privileged to something we haven’t seen since the first week in January, and that’s everybody practicing,” Izzo said to kick off his press conference.
Junior guard Branden Dawson will be the latest Spartan back in action after recovering from a broken hand. Izzo said after doing “some of the stuff” in a few practices this week, he should be going 90 percent in tonight’s practice.
Before anyone could ask about his Dawson’s projected playing time against Illinois, Izzo fired off his uncertain answer.
“How much will I play him? I have no clue,” Izzo said. “But I may know more about that today and tomorrow.”
Dawson, who has not played since Jan. 21 against Indiana, will be playing with a small brace on his right hand for protection. From what Izzo has seen, the brace doesn’t seem to have too much of an effect on Dawson’s play.
“It doesn’t seem to affect his shot or anything,” Izzo said. “But he’s going to play because he can defend and rebound right now, and he always did handle the ball a little better with his left hand than his right hand, so that isn’t a factor.”
Izzo also said Dawson has had a little bit of discomfort when he receives a hard pass, but assured that doctors said feeling slight pain is normal coming off of these injuries.
MSU has also seen enough players hop on and off the injury list to know what to expect from rehabbing players. One key issue is conditioning, especially with players that have missed weeks of action like senior forward Adreian Payne and senior guard Keith Appling.
When asked whether he knows where Dawson’s fitness level is at, he said he couldn’t gauge it just yet. He did say Dawson has done a better job of keeping himself in shape compared to Payne and Appling, but mostly because his injury allowed him to do more conditioning off the court.
“It’s hard to tell because he was in and out of some drills and didn’t do a lot of live stuff. And maybe we’ll see a little bit more tonight (at practice),” Izzo said. “I mean, there’s gonna be some adjustments to be made when you’re out for I don’t know, 36, 37 days, whatever it’s been.”
