When the Texas Longhorns host the No. 7 Florida Gators at the Moody Center on Wednesday evening, the SEC-mandated injury report revealed that head coach Sean Miller’s team will be without graduate forward Lassina Traore, who hasn’t played since taking a knock to his surgically-repaired knee in the win over the South Carolina Gamecocks more than three weeks ago.
Since then, the 6’9, 245-pounder has dealt with knee soreness in missing five straight games, leaving Miller unsure about when Traore will
return.
“I’m not sure on Lassina, I would absolutely tell you if I knew, we’re really just trying to take it a day and a week at a time,” Miller said on Tuesday. “He’s going to return at some point. We just want to make sure that when he returns, that he doesn’t return only to get another setback.”
The caution taken by the Texas medical staff is influenced by the postseason’s rapid approach — the Longhorns only have four more regular-season games before heading to the SEC Tournament in Nashville.
“We want to be able to bring him back and bringing him back in a safe place where he can continue from whenever that is all the way to our last game of the season,” Miller said.
According to the Texas head coach, Traore is improving and nearing a return, but it won’t happen against Florida, which leads the nation in rebounds per game. So the Horns will miss Traore, who has the team’s best rebounding rate on both ends of the floor, against a frontcourt that has a notable size advantage against Texas.
In Traore’s absence, sophomore forward Nic Codie made his first appearance in more than a month in the win over Ole Miss, and tied his season high with nine points in 15 minutes against Missouri. But over 21 minutes in the last two games, Codie only has two points on two shots attempts and two rebounds.
The Longhorns may have to hope for 10 to 15 effective minutes from Codie because there’s limited depth — the Horns have had to play smaller lineups with junior forwards Dailyn Swain and Cam Heide often on the court together because they don’t have any other choices with freshmen John Clark and Lewis Obiara both redshirting.
So rebounding will have to be a team effort on Wednesday as Miller and his staff hope that sophomore center Matas Vokietaitis can stay out of foul trouble.
