The Hall of Famer sounded more confident of Smith’s status for Saturday’s game versus Seton Hall, but also indicated that Dunlap’s season might be over
After Tuesday night’s 63-58 win over Georgetown, St. John’s head coach Rick Pitino provided an update on the status of two inactive players.
Pitino said Deivon Smith has a “60-to-70 percent chance” of playing in Saturday’s game versus Seton Hall. The guard injured his right shoulder during this past weekend’s game versus Villanova and missed the Red Storm’s game versus Georgetown.
“There’s no tear, there’s no dislocation, [Smith]’s got a bad bruise,” Pitino told media on Tuesday night.
The Hall of Fame head coach was much more pessimistic about Brady Dunlap’s prognosis after the team revealed Dunlap is also dealing with an abdominal tear on top of the torn ulnar collateral ligament in his left hand that’s kept him out of action for the past month.
Pitino believes Dunlap may have to undergo season-ending surgery, and even if he doesn’t that his season is finished. Still, the staff is sending Dunlap to Toronto for a non-surgical procedure that could hopefully create a path for the sophomore guard to return at some point this season — or at least avoid a long recovery process.
“Either way, I don’t think Brady [Dunlap] is going to play this year,” Pitino said on Tuesday, “I just would just like to keep him away from surgery because it’s three to four months [to recover] from that type of surgery, so I would like to see if we can rehabilitate him without surgery, but if he has to have it, he has to have it.”
The St. John’s men’s basketball team (15-3, 6-1 Big East) will return to the court on Saturday, January 18, when they face the Seton Hall Pirates (6-10, 1-4 Big East) at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. Saturday night’s game tip-offs at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time and will be broadcast on Fox Sports 1.