Taking stock in the wake of Dusan Mahorcic’s injury

Dusan Mahorcic suffered a serious-looking injury in the game last night, and while there is no prognosis as of this morning, I’m going to assume that he’ll miss extended time. It’s a significant loss.

And really demoralizing after all of the various injury setbacks that have plagued NC State in recent years. Kevin Keatts just cannot seem to escape these season-altering losses and it’s a huge bummer and hey, universe, do we not have enough problems already? Can you give NC State basketball a pass for one year on this part, at least? No? Fine.

Mahorcic has had an excellent season up to this point and was playing more minutes than D.J. Burns for good reason. Burns will have to step into more minutes now, but there are a number of things that he won’t be able to replace, most of which hurt NC State at the defensive end.

Mahorcic also opened up more for the guards at the offensive end, but State can work past that. It’s the impact at the other end that’s the most worrying part by far.

NC State was already playing with one of the thinnest rotations in the country, ranking 350th in bench minutes. Six-deep with a few guys stealing some minutes here and there. Ernest Ross was one of those but will have to feature more heavily now, unless Keatts wants to try throwing Ebe Dowuona back into the mix.

Here’s hoping that Ross can up his play with more consistent playing time, because he’s gonna have to if the Pack is going to stay on a trajectory for the NCAA tournament. It’s straight into the fire starting this weekend, so uh, let’s see what happens!