Just to clarify on Malcolm Lee
I keep getting questions about this, so I'll answer the best I can:
Malcolm Lee has a small cartilage tear in his left knee. Those types of injuries are typically one-off, in that there isn't a huge fear of him aggravating or "increasing" the injury. If you play on a small cartilage tear, it's not like one wrong twist and your knee explodes.
Now, obviously there is/was a concern about the extent of the injuries, and that's what took so long to diagnose it and make it public. Lee quite obviously would be risking a lot by hurrying back. Howland and Lee himself said today that is not the case, that doctors have assured them that there is not a risk of further injury.
Howland did say, however, that Lee's minutes would be monitored and possibly altered, given the wear-and-tear of potentially three games in three days.
But this should answer most of those questions.
I hope Coach Howland rest Lee through the Pac10 Tournament so that he can be more fresh for the NCAA tournament. At this point, the pac10 tourney is only for seeding purposes and should not hurt us too much if Lee doesn't play. Same with Zeek actually. This will be a good time to play the bench more and develop their confidence.
I respectfully disagree, gobruins. If Lee is able to go in the P10 tourney, he should go. If the situation dictates less minutes, so be it. If we are in a blow-out on Thursday against ORE/ASU, then rest everyone. But in a close game, if Lee is able to give minutes, then we need him. I agree it is about seeding, but the higher the seed, the easier the road to the Sweet 16 may be. I think this team has the talent to be a Sweet 16 team and they should shoot for that. Anything beyond that is gravy this season. Anything less would be a mild disappointment. Now, if they get an 8 or 9 seed, they would face a 1 seed in the second round, so an exit there would be (gulp) palatable. But, if they can win 2 -- or all 3 -- in the P10 tournament, then a 6 or 7 seed would not be out of the question, making the climb to the S16 a bit easier.