Maybe it won’t arrive quite in time for Christmas — or Saturday against St. John’s — but the Arizona Wildcats soon will receive a much-needed present.
That is, forward Stone Gettings no longer has symptoms of the concussion he suffered on Nov. 29. While making the announcement on his radio show Monday night, UA coach Sean Miller said Gettings might even play against St. John’s but appeared most optimistic about having him available into Pac-12 play.
“Now, he’s able to do a few things noncontactwise and we’ll see how he does there,” Miller said. “That could stir up a few symptoms … but I think Stone’s going to make tremendous progress.
“He might be able to play this weekend. … But I think it’s looking more and more promising that when we return back from the holidays that he’ll be a part of what we do, hopefully for the rest of the season.”
The Wildcats will face St. John’s on Saturday at San Francisco’s new Chase Center but won’t play again until they host ASU on Jan. 4, giving Gettings an extended chance to ease his way back on to the court if needed.
Gettings has already missed nearly three weeks since he suffered a concussion and facial fracture during a collision near the basket against Penn in the Wooden Legacy. Miller initially said after that game Gettings would likely play against Wake Forest on Dec. 1 but later said Gettings developed concussion symptoms overnight.
Not only was Gettings kept out of the Wake Forest game but he also did not attend practices nor UA’s Dec. 7 game at Baylor in order to avoid potential effects of light and noise on his concussion. He returned to the UA bench to watch the Wildcats’ games with Omaha and Gonzaga last week.
“There’s a whole list of (concussion) symptoms and he had a lot of them,” Miller said. “Some of them go away rather quickly within the first 3-5 days but there are those that really stick with you and it can take more than a week, more than a couple of weeks, sometimes more toward even a month before you’re free. And you can’t go to the next phase until you have no more symptoms.”
Although Gettings is averaging the 10th most minutes played, usually playing at power forward behind starter Zeke Nnaji, Miller said his absence has been felt significantly with his ability to stretch defenses. Gettings has also proven a crafty player in the post; in fact, he was hurt against Penn when he faked out a defender and then collided with him as the defender fell downward.
In eight games played, Gettings is averaging 5.4 points and 2.5 rebounds while making 4 of 9 3-pointers.
“We miss him and some of it is (about) us being more organized,” Miller said. “When you have an injury like that, you plug in certain guys to have bigger roles but you never can get it quite the way you had it before an injury like that happens.
“Stone was locked in on playing that position anytime Zeke was not there and we didn’t really have to look at going small. The one thing we love about Stone is he plays a different style.
“He is skilled, shoots the ball and we really do miss him. We’re really looking forward to get him back.”
While Gettings hasn’t been made available for comment since his injury, there’s little doubt he’s anxious to return. A grad transfer from Cornell, Gettings arrived at UA last December, then sat out the spring semester with the expectation of playing fully this season.
But he’s now missed 4 of 12 games, including UA’s two biggest so far, against Baylor and Gonzaga.
“If you think about it, he only has this one year with us,” Miller said, “and no one feels worse than him that he’s missing time.”
Rim shots
• Also on his radio show (Miller is not otherwise available this week until his Thursday news conference), Miller said the Pac-12 having seven of the Top 40 teams in the NCAA’s initial NET ratings is a sign the conference is clearly ahead of it’s “scary” performance last season. He also said UA’s No. 15 ranking in the NET “shows the performance of our team is a far cry from a year ago last season.”
• While Arizona won’t play until Saturday, St. John’s (9-2) will host Albany on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. The game will be carried on FS1.
