The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia

Sports

January 6, 2009

Injuries taking their toll on Herd

By Gary Fauber

The deja vu effect has not escaped Marshall coach Donnie Jones.

This time a year ago, a litany of injuries was depleting Jones’ roster and robbing the Thundering Herd of what had looked like a promising season.

Now, it’s happening again, with the same player right in the middle of it all.

As Marshall prepares to open Conference USA play Wednesday at defending league champion Memphis, it may be without the services of senior Markel Humphrey. The guard/forward from Atlanta has been playing most of the season with a severe stress fracture in his left foot.

The injury kept Humphrey out of the Herd’s exhibition win over Wheeling Jesuit and has limited him in practice all season. He aggravated the injury in a loss at Dayton on Dec. 23 and his minutes have been reduced since then.

Jones said Humphrey’s status for the Memphis game is questionable. He will be a game-time decision for the 8 p.m. Eastern tip-off.

“He did not practice Sunday, he will not practice (Monday) and he will not practice tomorrow,” Jones said Monday on the C-USA coaches’ teleconference. “The inflammation on the bone, the stress fracture is pretty severe. It has really affected his play.

“We have played him out of weakness more than as a strength, which is probably unfair to him.”

This time last year, Humphrey missed three games because of the same injury. Among the games he missed was the Capital Classic against West Virginia, and he could be watching that game again this year — the game is set for next Wednesday.

“It is very similar to what we had to do last year,” Jones said. “We played East Carolina with him injured. We tried to play him through it, but it was unfair to him and the team both.

“That’s where we are with him right now. We need to get him healthy and get him back.”

Humphrey played as a true freshman and could have gotten a medical redshirt for the year. It is now too late for that option, and Jones regrets not having considered it earlier.

“But he is a tough kid and wants to play through pain,” Jones said. “He is the one who is here every day practicing and grinding it out. (But) he needs to sit down and rest a while and hopefully get back to full strength.”

Humphrey is not alone among the wounded.

Sophomore Marcus Goode, a 6-foot-11 center, had surgery on a possible torn meniscus and will be out “probably at least a month.” True freshman Shaquille Johnson has been limited by injury but played considerably in the Herd’s 80-70 loss at San Diego on Friday.

And Chris Lutz, the junior transfer from Purdue who is among the league’s top three-point shooters, is still hampered by the hamstring injury that kept him out of four games. Jones said he is about 85 percent.

— E-mail: gfauber@

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