Aaron White (file photo)
Iowa coach Fran McCaffery says senior forward Aaron White still hopes to play in Saturday’s game against second ranked Wisconsin. White has not practiced this week after suffering a “shoulder stinger” in a loss at Purdue.
“Obviously we want him in the lineup, he wants to be in the lineup. I think there’s probably a good chance he’s going to try to do something and we will see when he gets out there…if he’s going to play Saturday, he’s probably going to try and practice tomorrow, I would think,” McCaffery says.
The final decision will be made by the doctors and if the doctors decide there is risk, then McCaffery says they won’t play him. He says if they can put a pad on it and let him play, then he will play, but he will have to be cleared by the doctors.
Senior center Gabe Olaseni has been nursing an injured ankle suffered in practice this week and the Hawks must get ready for a Badger team that hammered them by 32 points last week in Madison. “So we’ve got to do a better job defensively, we’ve got to do a better job of offensive execution, we’ve got to do a better job of taking away the three, they shoot it so well. Offensively we were as bad as we have been I thought, in that game,” according to McCaffery.
McCaffery hopes the home court makes a difference in this game. He says it impacts the energy level defensively, but he says they ultimately have to go out and execute better than they did in the last game.
Iowa is 4-3 in the Big Ten and 13-7 overall.