Gators F Erik Murphy could be back next week

By Adam Silverstein
November 30, 2011

Despite what first appeared to be a serious knee injury, Florida Gators junior forward Erik Murphy could be back in action as soon as next week, head coach Billy Donovan told CBSSports.com’s Jeff Goodman on Wednesday.

“The meniscus tear was from when he hurt it his sophomore year in high school,” Donovan said. “It looks like this was just a bone bruise.”

Donovan said the hope is that Murphy is back on the court in “a week to 10 days,” putting him in line to return when Florida hosts Arizona on Dec. 7.

This is great news for the Gators, a team thin in the frontcourt and in desperate need of Murphy’s size despite consecutive blowout victories in his absence.

In the interim, sophomore F Will Yeguete has filled in and played admirably well, picking up his first career double-double of 10 points and 11 rebounds during his second start of the season on Monday.

Yeguete would return to the bench as the primary frontcourt reserve but would likely see increased minutes due to the impact he has had in Murphy’s stead.

3 Comments

  1. Tractorr says:

    Good news! Given how Ohio State just blew out Duke our loss to them seems even less problematic (I didn’t think it was that bad considering all of the new starters). By tournament time this team could be dangerous. Beal and Rosario are just what Florida needed, guys who are always in attack mode.

  2. Ken (CA) says:

    Great news, sounds like he was going to be out months at first when “indefinitely out”. I never thought a 7 pt loss at OSU would be problematic, but considering how good Duke and OSU are, and now having murphy back for AZ, I can see why some are picking us as a final 4 team this year, and we are a much better team than we were last year with a lot of season yet to go!

  3. swiftt_tech69 says:

    Well we did win the sec and make it to the elite 8 last year. Let’s not anoint them so soon.

Join The
Discussion

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Top
WordPress Appliance - Powered by TurnKey Linux