Pardon undergoes hand surgery
For those that believe that Northwestern’s men’s basketball program is cursed, more evidence to support the theory emerged on Thursday.
Northwestern announced that sophomore center Dererk Pardon, who suffered a hand injury in Monday night's win over Wake Forest, underwent “successful surgery” Thursday morning and will be sidelined. The release gave no timetable for his return but said that he “will be reevaluated following the conclusion of nonconference play in late December.”
Pardon becomes the third Wildcat to miss substantial time this season, and the team has played just seven games.
The big man from Cleveland started each of the Wildcats' seven games this season and averaged 6.9 points and a team-leading 7.0 rebounds per game. He ranks third in the Big Ten with 2.6 blocked shots per contest, including six against Notre Dame on Nov. 22. Pardon is just 6-foot-8, but he has a 7-foot wingspan and the Wildcats will have a difficult time replacing his interior defense.
In Pardon’s absence, Northwestern will likely move 6-foot-8 Gavin Skelly, a natural forward, to the center position. Coach Chris Collins will also be forced to give significantly more minutes to freshman center Barret Benson, who has played sparingly thus far. At 6-foot-10 Benson is the biggest player on Northwestern’s roster, but the four-star recruit is averaging just 3.0 minutes per game.
Northwestern is 5-2 and striving to make the school’s first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance, but the road has been lined with potholes thus far – to say nothing of the two narrow losses the team has already suffered. The Wildcats lost promising freshman forward Rapolas Ivanauskas for the year to a shoulder injury before the season even started and sophomore forward Aaron Falzon has played in just three games due to injury.
The rash of injuries is nothing new to a program that has seemingly experienced more than its share in recent years. Ivanauskas is the fourth NU player to have a season wiped out by shoulder surgery in the last five years.