ALL THE BACKCOURT INJURIES.
On Wednesday, it was announced that Pitt guard Chris Jones was the latest Panther to be sent to the injury list with a toe issue:
Junior guard Chris Jones, who led Pitt with 41 3-pointers last season, underwent toe surgery Tuesday and is expected to be sidelined six weeks, the university confirmed Wednesday.
It's borderline ridiculous how many injury issues the team has had this offseason. Starting point guard James Robinson and transfer guard Sterling Smith both had surgery earlier this summer. Back in May, reserve guard Josh Newkirk had knee surgery. Those four expect to make up a large part of the backcourt and with all of them on the shelf, that isn't great news.
The good thing, of course, is that these are offseason surgeries and all were expected to be ready or close to it by the time the season starts. The early timeline has Jones being ready by the end of August and, as the Post-Gazette reported earlier with Robinson and Smith, they are expected to be ready for practices, which start up in October. Newkirk seems like the biggest wild card here as he was expected to be shelved from four to six months, which could take him up to around the start of the season.
Things could be worse, but you also hate to see these guys lose out on developmental time over the summer.
