Miami’s Bruce Brown to miss six weeks with foot injury
By Chris Stone
Miami will be without Bruce Brown for six weeks with significant potential long-term ramifications.
The Miami Hurricanes will be without sophomore guard Bruce Brown for the next six weeks, the school announced Tuesday. Brown suffered a left-foot injury in practice on Monday that will require surgery.
Assuming the timeline holds, Brown will miss the remainder of the regular season as well as the ACC tournament.
The 21-year old — a surefire future NBA Draft pick — has struggled offensively this season, but still plays a key role for the Hurricanes as one of the team’s primary ball-handlers and top perimeter defenders. He was averaging 11.4 points, 7.1 rebounds and 4.0 assists per contest prior to the injury.
Miami will likely move forward by sliding sophomore Dejan Vasiljevic into its starting lineup. Vasiljevic is a terrific outside shooter, but he lacks the creation ability of Brown and is nowhere near the same defender.
Instead, those responsibilities will now weigh more heavily on freshman guard Lonnie Walker. A potential lottery pick in this June’s draft, Walker is an immense talent who is averaging 24.0 points per game in the Hurricanes’ last two outings.
Brown’s injury comes at an important time for Miami as it nears the halfway point of conference play. Although the Hurricanes check-in at No. 17 in the latest RPI rankings, they’re still in search of some additional wins to bolster a less than spectacular NCAA Tournament resume. So far this season, Miami holds just three Quadrant 1 wins — victories over top 30 teams at home, top 50 teams on a neutral floor and top 75 teams on the road — which could limit the ceiling on their seed come March.
In the coming weeks, the Hurricanes have opportunities to bolster that number, however, with matchups at Virginia Tech, Notre Dame and North Carolina as well as a home date with Virginia. Winning those games without Brown will certainly prove more difficult, putting Miami’s March in danger.