Mellen / Dearth Injury Updates | Syracusefan.com

Mellen / Dearth Injury Updates

Nick Mellen out for Binghamton


Some other tweet quoted Desko saying that he was "week to week." Whelp. He could still be back for Army. He could also be out until May. Desko and co have repeatedly decided that honesty is not the best policy when it comes to injuries of top players.
 
Ugh. Day-to-day would have been bad. Week-to-week sucks.

Not surprising, Desko almost always under projects initially how long a player will be out. Hopefully he will be back for Army, we don't need him this week and he will have 8 days to get ready for the Cadets.
 
Not surprising, Desko almost always under projects initially how long a player will be out. Hopefully he will be back for Army, we don't need him this week and he will have 8 days to get ready for the Cadets.
From your lips...
 
One thing Mellen's injury does for sure is test SU's depth at close. With Kennedy's brother already out for the year and a frosh lost to transfer before the season started were esentially down to Staats at this point as the 4th pole. I don't know if he is fully healthy but you wonder if a guy like Zach Lee might be close to having to burn his redshirt if we have another issue. I dont see Page or Clary having to at this point but I guess it depends on who could play close if needed.

Edit - Or SU could bump Helmer down and have Page or Clary as the #2 to Fernandez but that feels like the classic "robbing Peter to pay Paul analogy. Hopefully Mellen isn't out long because we don't have a ton of options. One good aspect is Kennedy has already moved to close so him taking over the #1 cover position shouldn't be a big issue at all. His days on the wings though are definitely over.
 
Injury seems worse than expected.

With Desko its always a crap shoot as to what the real story is. Sometimes he says week to week and the guys hows up next game at nearly 100%. Other times the guy disappears for two months. The good news (at least I hope ) is that we don't appear to be talking ACL tear but knees can be tricky so its tough to tell. If he isn't back by Hobart I think we have a big problem on our hands.
 
With Desko its always a crap shoot as to what the real story is. Sometimes he says week to week and the guys hows up next game at nearly 100%. Other times the guy disappears for two months. The good news (at least I hope ) is that we don't appear to be talking ACL tear but knees can be tricky so its tough to tell. If he isn't back by Hobart I think we have a big problem on our hands.

If it was season ending, Desko would have said something.

He announced Dordy's injury last year on Feb 13.
 
If it was season ending, Desko would have said something.

He announced Dordy's injury last year on Feb 13.

Oh no I agree if it was an ACL or something of that nature we would know but it doesn't actually have to be season ending to be season ending if you know what I mean. Remember that grad transfer attackmen from Brown who looked like a player but who got hurt in like game 2 and was week to week for like 2 1/2 months. He wasn't out for the year so to speak but by the time he got back the season was all but over and he looked like a shell of himself. Not saying were looking at that here but like I said its hard to know with Desko's history when it comes to commenting on injuries.
 
Oh no I agree if it was an ACL or something of that nature we would know but it doesn't actually have to be season ending to be season ending if you know what I mean. Remember that grad transfer attackmen from Brown who looked like a player but who got hurt in like game 2 and was week to week for like 2 1/2 months. He wasn't out for the year so to speak but by the time he got back the season was all but over and he looked like a shell of himself. Not saying were looking at that here but like I said its hard to know with Desko's history when it comes to commenting on injuries.

Nick Piroli. You pulled that one out of the old memory bank.
 
One thing Mellen's injury does for sure is test SU's depth at close. With Kennedy's brother already out for the year and a frosh lost to transfer before the season started were esentially down to Staats at this point as the 4th pole. I don't know if he is fully healthy but you wonder if a guy like Zach Lee might be close to having to burn his redshirt if we have another issue. I dont see Page or Clary having to at this point but I guess it depends on who could play close if needed.

Staats played for like half a second before the end of one of the quarters FWIW. Who was the frosh on D that we lost to transfer?
 
One thing Mellen's injury does for sure is test SU's depth at close. With Kennedy's brother already out for the year and a frosh lost to transfer before the season started were esentially down to Staats at this point as the 4th pole. I don't know if he is fully healthy but you wonder if a guy like Zach Lee might be close to having to burn his redshirt if we have another issue. I dont see Page or Clary having to at this point but I guess it depends on who could play close if needed.

Edit - Or SU could bump Helmer down and have Page or Clary as the #2 to Fernandez but that feels like the classic "robbing Peter to pay Paul analogy. Hopefully Mellen isn't out long because we don't have a ton of options. One good aspect is Kennedy has already moved to close so him taking over the #1 cover position shouldn't be a big issue at all. His days on the wings though are definitely over.
Good analysis but sobering. No defensive unit right now including ssdm is as deep or as strong as it could be. Little flexibility, options, depth til some returns. Manageable but inability to switch as planned for matchups disappoints. Wait and see what unfolds but the restricts frustrate, may be time to go dark and take a vaca.
 
Good analysis but sobering. No defensive unit right now including ssdm is as deep or as strong as it could be. Little flexibility, options, depth til some returns. Manageable but inability to switch as planned for matchups disappoints. Wait and see what unfolds but the restricts frustrate, may be time to go dark and take a vaca.

Agreed, very frustrating to lose a guy of Mellen's caliber when were already hurting depth wise at the position. Reinforcements on the way next year with 4 incoming frosh plus the return of Kennedy's brother and maybe even a potential transfer but that won't help us at all this year. Going to be a bit of a work in progress until we get him back. Getting Dami back at least would help sure up SSDM for sure and give the staff additional options if needed, such as putting Barlow back to LSM if necessary as he was quite the LSM in high school, which would allow us the option to put Helmer at close. A radical move for sure as he hasn't played LSM in a few years now but we may have to think outside the box.
 
Obviously I don't think Mellen out this weekend will change much against Binghamton. But for the sake of the defense in general, I really wish he was playing. It cant help to have your defensive leader out for any amount of time, and the SU defense really did not look good against Colgate. its early in the season yes, but as has been stated before, they will be facing some serious offenses coming up. I don't doubt that Kennedy will be able to handle most teams number one option, but the communication, sliding and and recovery schemes all look like they need serious work.
The one good thing that can be said is it looks like it was a good idea to bump Kennedy down when they did, so if Mellen is out for an extended period of time, it won't be an emergency to have Kennedy where he is. If this goes on for more than one game though, I don't think you'll see Kennedy playing any sort of LSM the rest of the season.
 
Obviously I don't think Mellen out this weekend will change much against Binghamton. But for the sake of the defense in general, I really wish he was playing. It cant help to have your defensive leader out for any amount of time, and the SU defense really did not look good against Colgate. its early in the season yes, but as has been stated before, they will be facing some serious offenses coming up. I don't doubt that Kennedy will be able to handle most teams number one option, but the communication, sliding and and recovery schemes all look like they need serious work.
The one good thing that can be said is it looks like it was a good idea to bump Kennedy down when they did, so if Mellen is out for an extended period of time, it won't be an emergency to have Kennedy where he is. If this goes on for more than one game though, I don't think you'll see Kennedy playing any sort of LSM the rest of the season.

This is definitely a situation where you have to say "Thank god we have Kennedy." There isn't really anyone we will face where I think to myself "Mellen could handle that guy but Kennedy couldn't." They both seem equally capable of erasing a teams number one threat. I have no worries about Kennedy going up against Nichtern for Army instead of Mellen. If (hoping this is not the case) he has to go up against Epstein instead of Mellen I still don't feel overly worried. He erased Griffin Brown from the game after he was clearly giving Mellen some trouble.

While defensive communication could be an issue, it honestly seems to be one of Mellens relatively week points. Often he shows a reluctance to leave his man or switch off of a pick. There is a chance that Kennedy will be better there. Communication will be an issue no matter what with a ton of new faces in all D positions. Would still be an issue with a healthy Mellen.

On top of that I have a lot of faith in Helmer to take on team's top middies and Murphy in taking on a teams second best dodging attack (assuming he takes the place of Kennedy's role on close). Both have improved their speed after the year of short stick and shown they can operate well with a long pole.

Hoping the Colgate game was a wake up call for the defense to improve its communication and slides.
 

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