Men’s hoops: Longar on crutches, out vs. Texas
By Scott Wright
About 15 minutes before tip-off, OU center Longar Longar walked onto the court inside Lloyd Noble Center on crutches and in street clothes, so the senior won’t be available toinght against Texas.
Longar began to feel pain from a stress fracture in his lower right leg around the start of Big 12 Conference play Jan. 12. He has been occasionally skipping practice to save his health for game day. But he was in obvious pain during 16 minutes of action last Saturday at Texas A&M.
Fortunately for the Sooners, this is a game they can — at least somewhat — get by without him. Obviously, they don’t have the depth to survive without him for long, but Texas doesn’t have the inside presence a team like Texas A&M has. After 6-foot-7 power forward Damion James, the ‘Horns are fairly mediocre in the middle. But that doesn’t mean Longar’s absence won’t be felt.
With only two available scholarship forwards on the roster, Taylor and Blake GRiffin can look forward to a lot of work tonight.
K-State’s Clent Stewart loses mother
By Scott Wright
Some sad news began to circulate around Kansas, Oklahoma and the rest of Big 12 country Tuesday afternoon with word that the mother of Kansas State senior basketball player Clent Stewart had lost her battle with cancer.
Here’s the story from the Kansas City Star.
Clent is a Tulsa native who attended Union High School. He’s had a productive career at K-State, and here’s hoping he gets through this situation well.
As someone whose mother passed away long before she should have, I know fairly well what Clent is going through right now. And after seeing my dad deal with the death of my 80-year-old grandma just a month ago today, I learned that losing your mother is never easy, no matter how old you are.
Clent, my prayers are with you.
