Robbie Hummell torn ACL out for year

[Dukeface88]

Sorry to hear this. Just a horrible break for him and the team. Hope the rehab goes well and he's able to recover.

[Faison1]

My heart hurts for the guy. That is absolutely tragic.

He doesn't deserve that, and neither do his teammates.

[DevilOfATime]

This sucks big time for Purdue and their fans. My Brother-ln-law and my sister both went to school at Purdue and graduated from their years back they are huge Purdue fans. My brother in law was talking about our teams Duke and Purdue just last night we were talking about Robbie on how he is such a great player and a great player on Purdue team we were saying that Purdue had a good chance this year we was also joking around with each other if Purdue and Duke met up again. I was shocked when I heard about it today. Poor kid can't get a break. I hope he recovers from it and will be back for his 5th year.

[JasonEvans]

Andy Katz of ESPN had Purdue at #2 in his preseason poll (behind you-know-who). He has updated his poll to reflect the loss of Hummel and now has Purdue at #23.

--Jason "what a horrible break for this team!" Evans

[DevilHorns]

Wow. My heart goes out to Hummel and the Purdue fanbase.

I'm not an orthopedist, but I do know that if a torn ACL is reconstructed and tears again, a second reconstruction is even more likely to tear. In other words being "injury prone" in regards to this specific ACL is perhaps fitting. Dana O'Neill has an ESPN blog up showcasing the parallel paths of Curtis Sumpter in regards to a re-torn ACL. Sumpter ended up having a basketball life overseas.

This is rough. I really hope he didn't push accelerating rehab to playing time when everything wasn't 100% optimal for his knee. According to this quote from Andy Katz' blog, this may perhaps have been the case:

"Hummel was healthy and ready to play this season after suffering a torn right ACL on Feb. 24 at Minnesota. Late Friday night, during ESPNU’s Midnight Madness coverage, he told ESPN.com that he was close to being 100 percent back."

Then again, he could just be referring to the status of his athletic ability pre-injury to now, and not necessarily talking about his ACL specifically. Regardless, this stinks. Poor kid.

[COYS]

Major bummer. I have a few friends who are big Purdue fans and from all I've heard from them it seems evident that this is just a terrible break for a good man and a classy program. Hoping for a miracle comeback for Robbie.

[jipops]

This isn't fair at all. It's downright cruel really. I'll really be pulling for this kid. College basketball will be missing a major, major talent and by all accounts a great guy. I sincerely hope it works out for him to comeback again.

[Acymetric]

Really sucks for him (of course for the team as well, but I think the personal issues are much greater). I hope he's able to recover fully and continue his basketball career...he's a heck of a player.

Its a shame though...this injury stigma is going to follow him for years even if he is able to stay healthy. It could affect his draft stock and his leverage in negotiating contracts. Really feel for this guy.

[ChicagoCrazy84]

Wow. My heart goes out to Hummel and the Purdue fanbase.

I'm not an orthopedist, but I do know that if a torn ACL is reconstructed and tears again, a second reconstruction is even more likely to tear. In other words being "injury prone" in regards to this specific ACL is perhaps fitting. Dana O'Neill has an ESPN blog up showcasing the parallel paths of Curtis Sumpter in regards to a re-torn ACL. Sumpter ended up having a basketball life overseas.

This is rough. I really hope he didn't push accelerating rehab to playing time when everything wasn't 100% optimal for his knee. According to this quote from Andy Katz' blog, this may perhaps have been the case:

"Hummel was healthy and ready to play this season after suffering a torn right ACL on Feb. 24 at Minnesota. Late Friday night, during ESPNU’s Midnight Madness coverage, he told ESPN.com that he was close to being 100 percent back."

Then again, he could just be referring to the status of his athletic ability pre-injury to now, and not necessarily talking about his ACL specifically. Regardless, this stinks. Poor kid.

I hate to do this, but I do question why he was on the court practicing. What's the reasoning for it? ACL's are tricky and I know that doctor's probably cleared him, but these things take time to conform to your surrounding joints. Maybe another month would've done him well while continuing rehab and light basketball workouts. I know this is easy for me to say, but if he tore it in practice, I wonder if he was in good enough shape to be out there with his team.

[DevilHorns]

I hate to do this, but I do question why he was on the court practicing. What's the reasoning for it? ACL's are tricky and I know that doctor's probably cleared him, but these things take time to conform to your surrounding joints. Maybe another month would've done him well while continuing rehab and light basketball workouts. I know this is easy for me to say, but if he tore it in practice, I wonder if he was in good enough shape to be out there with his team.

It's a touchy thing to talk about for sure, but I 100% agree with you. I read on some other boards that he put on 15lbs of upper body muscle since his first ACL tear. Thats 15 lbs more of weight his rehabilitating lower body has to deal with when he begins full throttle practice. From what I've read the injury occurred in a sequence where he was high up in the air contesting a shot. On the way down he landed normally but with a good deal of force as one would expect. It wasn't a freak injury or a weird twist and fall or anything like that from what I've gathered. I really hope he didn't feel an awkward amount of pressure to come back early and start the season full throttle. Maybe he was so advanced in rehabilitation that he was cleared enthusiastically to do so, who knows. Really stinks for him. I hope he can keep his spirits up and persevere through this.

[moonpie23]

total bummer...i hope he rehabs it and gets back in the game...

[ACCBBallFan]

Sammy Zeglinski now out too, joins KT Thompson and Allan Chaney in ACC injured reserve.

Open up some PT for Jontel Evans a proimising frosh.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketb...inia-zeglinski

Hate to see any kid have to sit out due to injury.

[D.C. Devil]

Ken Pomery has a pretty good piece of analysis up on his blog, which argues that the analysts might be a little too quick to bury a Hummel-less Purdue.*

The nut of his argument is that there is a huge gulf between the quality of a consensus top-3 college basketball squad (as Purdue was) and a team on the cusp of the top 25 (as pollsters currently seem to think Purdue now is), and that gulf is larger than any one player.

http://kenpom.com/blog/index.php/web..._about_purdue/

And, obviously, I feel tremendously bad for Hummel. He seems like a great kid and I wish him a full recovery and a long career.

*I've got a lot of respect for Ken -- who, as we will recall, was among the very few commentators who believed Duke to be an elite team throughout last year.

[Acymetric]

Ken Pomery has a pretty good piece of analysis up on his blog, which argues that the analysts might be a little too quick to bury a Hummel-less Purdue.*

The nut of his argument is that there is a huge gulf between the quality of a consensus top-3 college basketball squad (as Purdue was) and a team on the cusp of the top 25 (as pollsters currently seem to think Purdue now is), and that gulf is larger than any one player.

http://kenpom.com/blog/index.php/web..._about_purdue/

And, obviously, I feel tremendously bad for Hummel. He seems like a great kid and I wish him a full recovery and a long career.

*I've got a lot of respect for Ken -- who, as we will recall, was among the very few commentators who believed Duke to be an elite team throughout last year.

Pomeroy is a great resource for stats and obviously a really smart guy, but I'm not sure I buy this argument. How good is Duke without Redick, J-Will, S-Will (hmm...that doesn't quite roll off the tongue, does it?), and the list goes on.

One player can make a big difference. Maybe they'll still be top 10 or 15, but after you lose your top player, especially a player like Hummel, voters can't give the benefit of the doubt. Purdue will have plenty of chances to prove that ranking is low, but for now I think the ranking is pretty reasonable.

[JasonEvans]

The nut of his argument is that there is a huge gulf between the quality of a consensus top-3 college basketball squad (as Purdue was) and a team on the cusp of the top 25 (as pollsters currently seem to think Purdue now is), and that gulf is larger than any one player.

As usual, Pomeroy demonstrates that he is smarter than all most of us.

Look at it this way – Temple was previously 23rd in Katz’s list. If you added a healthy Hummel to Temple, I don’t think you would consider the Owls to be national-title material. If you think Hummel had some special value to Purdue that he wouldn’t have on another team, leave him out of the argument for a second. Pick any player in college basketball and add him to Temple’s roster. He still couldn’t make the Owls’ the second-best team in America.

Hard to argue with that logic. I wish he had chimed in with where he thinks Purdue now stands nationally. I still see them as a top 15-ish kinda club.

-Jason "gotta love the KenPom ratings!" Evans

[pfrduke]

Pomeroy is a great resource for stats and obviously a really smart guy, but I'm not sure I buy this argument. How good is Duke without Redick, J-Will, S-Will (hmm...that doesn't quite roll off the tongue, does it?), and the list goes on.

One player can make a big difference. Maybe they'll still be top 10 or 15, but after you lose your top player, especially a player like Hummel, voters can't give the benefit of the doubt. Purdue will have plenty of chances to prove that ranking is low, but for now I think the ranking is pretty reasonable.

Well, to think of this another way, imagine (and I shudder at the mere thought) that Singler gets injured and goes down for the season. Singler is every bit the player Robbie Hummel is (if not better), but I highly doubt that Duke would drop from #1 to #21 if it suddenly found itself without Kyle Singler. If the talent surrounding Hummel was good enough to make them #2 or #3 with him, it's good enough to make them better than #23 without him.

[robed deity]

Just last year-they hung with Duke till late in the second half without him. I realize Kramer (good defender and glue guy) graduated and it's a different team this year, but still. They'll still be tough I think.

[Acymetric]

Well, to think of this another way, imagine (and I shudder at the mere thought) that Singler gets injured and goes down for the season. Singler is every bit the player Robbie Hummel is (if not better), but I highly doubt that Duke would drop from #1 to #21 if it suddenly found itself without Kyle Singler. If the talent surrounding Hummel was good enough to make them #2 or #3 with him, it's good enough to make them better than #23 without him.

The difference here (purely my perception) is that Purdue is more reliant on Hummel than we are on Singler (or Nolan). This Duke team has 2 guys that could be frontrunners for NPOY were they on separate teams (even if both are performing well the media will probably pick 1 to focus on). Maybe even 3 if you consider that Kyrie could challenge for that award if he sticks around.

I think Hummel carries more of a load on his own than any of our players this year...we have more balance. Talk of putting various players on other teams and what their ranking might be is pretty far out into the land of hypotheticals, much like the transitive property of sports (we beat x, and they beat y, so we should definitely beat y).

Like I said, it may be that they are still a top 10 or 15 club, but there is a lot of uncertainty and in general when voters are uncertain they guess low unless its a marquee team (think Notre Dame, and yes, Duke from time to time as well).

[Kedsy]

As usual, Pomeroy demonstrates that he is smarter than all most of us.

Look at it this way – Temple was previously 23rd in Katz’s list. If you added a healthy Hummel to Temple, I don’t think you would consider the Owls to be national-title material. If you think Hummel had some special value to Purdue that he wouldn’t have on another team, leave him out of the argument for a second. Pick any player in college basketball and add him to Temple’s roster. He still couldn’t make the Owls’ the second-best team in America.

Hard to argue with that logic. I wish he had chimed in with where he thinks Purdue now stands nationally. I still see them as a top 15-ish kinda club.

-Jason "gotta love the KenPom ratings!" Evans

Well, I think it depends on the player. Do you remember Larry Bird's Indiana State team? Without Bird, that team was a lower-middle of the pack MVC team (and nowhere near the national rankings). With him they went undefeated until the national title game (and were ranked #1 in the country).

That's an extreme example, and I'm not suggesting Hummel is Bird, but in college basketball one player can be the difference between a title contender and a lower ranked or unranked team.

[JasonEvans]

Well, I think it depends on the player. Do you remember Larry Bird's Indiana State team? Without Bird, that team was a lower-middle of the pack MVC team (and nowhere near the national rankings). With him they went undefeated until the national title game (and were ranked #1 in the country).

That's an extreme example, and I'm not suggesting Hummel is Bird, but in college basketball one player can be the difference between a title contender and a lower ranked or unranked team.

Certainly there are players who can take a team from good (or decent) to great all on their own. Pomeroy says an 18-year-old Shaq might have been able to do that for the current Temple team (though I think Pomeroy is not recalling what Shaq was like as a freshman at LSU -- he wasn't an All-American until his soph season).

One can cite many other examples of players over the years who would have made an overnight difference on a team -- David Robinson is a great example at Navy.

Pomeroy's point is that there is no one in college basketball TODAY who could do that. Unless we think Hummell is that kind of talent (and no one is suggesting that he is) then dropping a team from #2 to #23 does not make sense to Pomeroy.

--Jason "as I said, I am inclined to agree with Mr. KenPom" Evans