By Bryan Bloodworth
By Bryan Bloodworth
NORMAL – MiKyle McIntosh’s status for Wednesday’s game, against Northern Iowa at Redbird Arena, and possibly longer, is up in the air, according to Illinois State coach Dan Muller.
The 6-foot-7 junior forward did not play Sunday at Evansville. He injured his knee Jan. 21 against Drake. McIntosh is the team’s second leading scorer (13.5) and rebounder (6.4).
“I’m not going to tell you exactly what the MRI said,” Muller added Tuesday during a media gathering. “I will tell you we haven’t decided what’s going to happen yet. It’s going to be up to him in a lot of ways. I don’t know if he’ll be able to play tomorrow night. He did not practice yesterday, but there’s no final decision on what’s going to happen.
“If we don’t have him it’s a huge loss for our team. What MiKyle does for our team – his physicality. He’s one of our best rebounders. He can guard multiple positions. He handles the ball. He goes off ball screens probably the second most after Paris (Lee).
“We throw him the ball inside. It will be a huge adjustment for our team as we saw on Sunday. I think it gave our team some confidence on Sunday to go out there and have some success without him. But we’ll have to make some adjustments.”
Lee agrees.
“MiKyle is a very important part of our team,” he added. “When he’s not out there we just have to make adjustment. Other players just have to step up.”
ISU, which has an 18-4 overall record and a Missouri Valley league-leading 10-0 record, meets Northern Iowa at 8 p.m. The Redbirds are shooting for their 12th straight win and their school-record 18th straight home win dating back to last season against a team that has won five straight. The Panthers are 10-11 overall and 5-5 in the league after starting 0-5.
“That would be pretty special. “It really would,” said Muller. “Records of any kind in a program whether it would be individual or team are pretty special. Not only that, but we’ve talked about no team has gone undefeated for an entire season.
“This group has a chance to leave their legacy. If we can continue to play at a high level this next month and see what happens at the end of the year, people are going to remember these guys for a long time.”
Tonight’s game also is the beginning of a big week in the league for the Redbirds, who lead Wichita State by one game. ISU plays at Wichita State at 7 p.m. Saturday.
“Not that we’re looking past this game whatsoever, but we have two of the hottest teams in the league this week starting with Northern Iowa,” said Muller. “The magic of (UNI coach) Ben Jacobson; five in a row. Their defense has really improved. They’re getting the ball inside a ton. Koch is playing at a really high level. It will be a heck of a challenge for us to continue to protect home court hopefully.”
Bryan Bloodworth can be reached at [email protected]
