Minnesota Golden Gophers fans held their collective breath last Saturday as Nate Mason went down with what appeared to be a serious left leg injury against the Florida Atlantic Owls. But after an MRI, Mason is considered day-to-day with an ankle injury and hopes to play Saturday against Harvard.
“We put him through an individual yesterday,” said head coach Richard Pitino. “More a lot of just shots — still not sure. We’ll evaluate again today and see from there, so day to day. Hopefully he’ll play. I think if you asked him, he’d say he was going to play.”
Mason could not put any pressure on his left leg as he was helped off the floor following the injury, leading fans, teammates and even Pitino to assume the worst.
“I went out to dinner with the family and just kept checking my phone, kept checking my phone,” said Pitino, “so it was a big, big sigh of relief. He’s obviously extremely important to our team, and he was playing well. It didn’t look good. I don’t think the injury itself looked bad, but his reaction didn’t look great, so huge sigh of relief for everybody.”
That includes Mason’s teammates Dupree McBrayer — who has missed two straight games with his own injury — and Amir Coffey, who also went through the loss of an important senior last year in Akeem Springs (Achilles tendon).
Minnesota hopes to have its full arsenal of guards as they restart Big Ten play on Jan. 3 against the Illinois Fighting Illini.