Senior center Cameron Ridley of the Texas Longhorns suffered a fractured left foot over the weekend and is out indefinitely, the school announced on Monday per Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports.
Texas big man Cameron Ridley is out indefinitely with a fractured left foot, per release. Huge Big 12 news.
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) December 28, 2015
The 22-year-old Ridley is said to have sustained the injury in practice on Sunday and is now set to undergo surgery on Tuesday.
Ridley had been playing the best basketball of his career for the 8-3 Longhorns, averaging 12.7 points per game, 9.7 rebounds per game, and a massive 3.4 blocks per game on 63.2 percent shooting from the field this season. The Longhorns had been giving their fans reason for optimism recently as well with six straight wins, including an upset victory over preseason No. 1 North Carolina on December 12.
With no other player on the roster averaging more than six rebounds or one blocked shot per game on the year, head coach Shaka Smart will find it an arduous, if not impossible, task to compensate for Ridley’s loss and may be forced to go small and/or entirely guard-oriented.
With how long foot injuries tend to heal for big men, it’s now possible that the 6-foot-9, 285-pound Ridley has played his final game in a Texas uniform. Meanwhile, the Longhorns’ hopes of asserting themselves in an absolutely stacked Big-12 may have just been crushed by this news.
Image Credit: Brendan Maloney-USA TODAY Sports
