The Penn State men’s basketball team has been hit with the injury bug.
Three key players have been sidelined, and only time will heal these wounds.
Penn State has been without redshirt junior guard Freddie Dilione V., freshman point guard, Kayden Mingo and freshman power forward, Tibor Mirtic.
FREDDIE DILIONE, V.
Dilione has been an absolute spark for Penn State. Before coach Mike Rhoades inserted Dilione into the starting lineup, he was on his way to a potential Big Ten Sixth Man Of The Year Award. The coaching staff was inspired to make Dilione a starter due to the automatic energy and production the native from Fayetteville, North Carolina provides. Wednesday against UCLA, Dilione went down with an ankle injury in the first half and couldn’t return. It’s undetermined if Dilione will be available for Sunday’s game at Maryland. Before he went down, Dilione was leading the team in scoring at 14.1 ppg.
KAYDEN MINGO
The star freshman point guard had to have surgery for a broken nose that he suffered during a practice Monday, Jan. 5, the day before Penn State took on No. 2 Michigan. Penn State played without Mingo against Michigan, No. 5 Purdue and UCLA. It’s not known how long Mingo will be out, but Rhoades said it would be for “a while.” He’s still leading the team in points (14.9), rebounds (3.9), assists (4.5) and steals (2.5) per game.
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.TIBOR MIRTIC
The 6-foot-8 power forward from Ljubljana, Slovenia went down with a knee injury in the first half of the Michigan game. The injury to Mirtic was particularly untimely due to his playing time starting to increase along with his rise in production and confidence. Even though the stat sheet may not resemble Mirtic’s true effect on the game, he is an important depth player for Penn State. Rhoades mentioned the power forward as doing a lot of the “dirty work” for the team. In other words, Mirtic seems to always be around the ball and isn’t afraid of physical contact with the big boys inside. He’s currently averaging 3.7 ppg. and 3.3 rpg. Rhoades said that Mirtic will “miss some time.”
Even minus these three key players, Penn State has managed to be competitive in the Big Ten, coming within a shot of beating Michigan and keeping Purdue to within single digits on the road.
With that said, Penn State is hoping for these three to be back sooner rather than later.
Penn State basketball plays next Sunday, Jan. 18 at Maryland. The game will be nationally televised on the Big Ten Network with a tip off slated for noon.
