Highlights from Sampson’s weekly presser

  • Dec 13, 2007 in

sampson.jpgIndiana coach Kelvin Sampson addressed the media earlier today and gave us an update on Eric Gordon’s injury, Armon Bassett’s suspension, A.J. Ratliff’s return and an injury to Eli Holman. Here are some highlights of Sampson’s comments. The full transcript of the press conference is available here.

On the status of Eric Gordon:

“Eric has been good in practice this week. I fully expect him to play. He had not done anything to break a sweat since Monday night (vs. Tennessee State). I don’t think he went full court Tuesday; yesterday he went full court pretty good. It is just a matter of time. There were no broken bones. It was more discomfort and a really, really deep contusion. I think the more muscular you are, the more those hurt you.”

On the overall team effort in practice this week:

“Jordan, Jamarcus, all our guys, everybody has been practicing well. It will be interesting to see how we practice today and tomorrow because we have not worked on Western Carolina at all. But we will today. Coach Meyer has the scouting report. We will go over that today and break them down and see if we can’t play better Saturday.”

On the status of Eli Holman:

“I can tell you that he hurt his wrist. I don’t know (how bad the injury is). I know he went to get it x-rayed and it was not broken. But there may be some ligament damage in there. It is in a brace. We went early yesterday, I think it was 12:30, and it was toward the end. I worked him out individually before practice started for about 45 minutes, just he and I. And he had a really good practice. I didn’t see the play. I know that after practice Tim (Garl) took him to the hospital and then Tim text me after to say it is not broken but thought he had some ligament damage. We just have to wait and see how serious it is.”

On the suspension of Armon Bassett:

“Game to game. We’ll see. He had got some work to do. He won’t play Saturday and we will just have to wait to see about the following Saturday.”

On whether or not A.J. Ratliff will play on Saturday:

“Depends on if he gets his classes in. He has a lot of stuff that has to be in. The academic part of it, through the NCAA and forces that be up on campus with the registrar and get all his grades recorded, we just have to wait on that. You know, I talked to our academic people a long time this morning. I would be the wrong guy to try and explain that.”

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