A trio of injured West Virginia men's basketball players are amongst lingering questions for the Mountaineers ahead of the team's Big 12 opener on the road against No. 7 Kansas, and no solid answers on the status of the three athletes has yet been provided.
The Mountaineers have seen starters Tucker DeVries and Amani Hansberry suffer injuries over the month of December while senior Jayden Stone has yet to play this season due to an undisclosed issue.
DeVries has missed the past three games with an upper-body injury for which he's out "indefinitely" while Hansberry appeared to injure his ankle last week against Mercyhurst. On Monday, just 24 hours ahead of the clash with Kansas, WVU Head Coach Darian DeVries had little in terms of solid updates on the injured players.
“Pretty much all of those guys are the same as they were when we left. We’ve got today’s practice and tomorrow’s shoot-around to kind of determine where everybody’s at," DeVries said.
The Mountaineers are most likely to see Hansberry play of the three -- he injured his ankle early against Mercyhurst but walked off the floor under his own power. He did not return to action, but finished the game on the bench while icing the injured area. DeVries was quoted after the game saying that he didn't believe the injury to be "anything serious" and that Hansberry should "be good."
The Mountaineers can ill-afford injury issues, as their rotation has only went 11-deep this season, with two players (Jake Auer, Haris Elezovic) seeing less than 10 minutes per game. The return of Stone will extend the lineup another player.