Why Hunter isn't playing....
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Watch him try to guard in the paint. His back is so stiff he cannot even bend over, or lower himself into a position to slide and guard. i don’t recall him lacking this flexibility in feeds of him before this season.
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I noticed some stiffness, too. Makes me wonder if he has an injury we aren’t hearing about.
We had read so much about him being “Hudyized” and how his vertical increased 6 inches or so and what a great shot blocker he was at Arkansas. I think we are all expecting to see more of Hunter, but wonder why we haven’t. He had a few good scoring moments in exhibition. And we are complaining about the lack of size when we thought we had the next Cole in Hunter. It really seems everything is right for a guy like Hunter to get some minutes, especially now before Cliff gets totally engaged in Self ball.
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Mickelson is stiff because Hudy’s been working him out too much … hmmm.
I would really like to know from Self what the issue is with Mickelson. It has to be something pretty big.
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IF and that is a big if… If Hunter is injured, you have to wonder about Hudy’s system being able to prevent nagging injuries.
Going back over the last few years - EJ’s knees were never right, Selden’s knee last year never got healthy, Withey had foot problems for the first two years he was at KU, Selby’s foot - just a quick sample. All of those guys were supposed to have gotten quicker, more explosive, etc, but they had some nagging issues that went along with it.
Six inches is a huge increase in vertical. That’s likely a 25% or greater increase. Could Hunter’s body handle it? Can his back and joints handle the jolt of landing from that much higher up? The extra explosiveness is nice, but only if he can make that useful in game situations.
Again, I’m not accusing Hudy of getting guys injured because injuries have a lot of things going on. However, I am wondering if our guys are spending enough time recovering to make them most effective.
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Every athletic programs has lots of injuries as a result of the physical effort required to play at the higher levels. We are more aware and cognizant of what goes on at KU because this is what we focus on, but if you look at other programs, the injury situation is equal or worse. Hudy herself got injured while training with McLemore(???) so she is very aware of the results of over training athletes.
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There is only so much Hudy can do to prevent injury. They can build muscles and tendons around joints… but in the end, the more guys build up and do more, the more stress they put on the joint. These guys are increasing their verticals… well… that means harder compression on the joints.
She does help them trim down, and that is a real plus when considering joint compression.
