Shaka Smart put that out into the world on Wednesday when meeting with the media.
Let’s start with this: Officially, Marquette men’s basketball head coach Shaka Smart did not say that top 100 freshman Damarius Owens is definitely not playing in Monday’s opener against Stony Brook.
Here’s what he did say precisely, as reported by Ben Steele from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
“I honestly don’t have the exact results from … they’re doing some different testing,” Smart said during a media availability at the Al McGuire Center. “Unlikely he’ll play on Monday and he may be out for a while.”
Owens picked up a toe injury of some sort during Marquette’s super secret closed door scrimmage with Oklahoma this past weekend. The Golden Eagles reportedly came out on the positive side of that adventure on the scoreboard, but clearly did not get out of it unscathed.
While Smart did not go so far as to say that Owens is definitely not playing in the season opener, I think it’s safe to say that there’s no reason to rush the top ranked recruit in Smart’s admittedly still short MU tenure as head coach. Marquette is heavily favored to beat all of their first three opponents by at least 11 points according to KenPom.com, and the projected margin against both Stony Brook and Central Michigan is actually north of 20. Nothing is gained by telling Owens to gut through whatever he’s experiencing to play in those games, not when things start picking up for real 11 days into the season when the Golden Eagles visit Maryland.
The big question to deal with at the moment is really about what “for a while” means. Like I said, if three games = a while, then sure, absolutely. If “a while” is more like “a month,” well, that’s probably bad news for Owens ultimately earning a decent amount of rotation minutes as the season goes along. If he’s out til December 1, then he’ll have already missed the first eight games of the season, including three games against high major competition that might go a long way towards solidifying roles on the team this season.
Remember: Marquette is already a little bit short-handed, as guard Sean Jones is not yet cleared for full activities following his ACL surgery in January. MU is full up in terms of scholarships, but freshman Josh Clark is expected to redshirt this season, much like Caedin Hamilton a year ago. Thus, while they have 13 guys on the roster, this means that Marquette will be playing with just 10 men for the foreseeable future.