Good news for Washington fans worried Tony Wroten isn’t ready to run the show this season: Abdul Gaddy will be.
The junior point guard tore the ACL in his left leg 13 games into last season, just when he was finally starting to play like the No. 2-rated guard in the class of 2009. He hasn’t played since, not in summer leagues or in pick-up games. But he told Rivals.com that he’s been able to cut, jump and shoot.
In fact, Huskies coach Lorenzo Romar expects Gaddy to be medically cleared in the next few weeks.
“If we had a big game tonight and he wanted to play, he’d play in that game,” Romar told Rivals.com. “He’s strong enough to go out and compete.”
Gaddy followed his disappointing freshman season by doubling his scoring to 8.5 points a game and sporting a 3.1-to-1 assist to turnover ratio. Isaiah Thomas and Matthew-Bryan Amaning got most of the headlines, but Gaddy’s consistency and savvy was huge. Without him in the lineup, Washington was 14-8 (though Thomas was brilliant and helped the Huskies win the Pac-10 tournament).
The one benefit from missing all those games? Gaddy soaked in everything, just like a coach would. That’ll surely help playmaking decisions.
“You see things from a coach’s perspective,” Gaddy told Rivals.com. “You learn the coach is always right. When you look at it from the bench, the coach was right. He really does see everything.”.
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