NIU loses Silas for at least two weeks

Just when Northern Illinois gets its first opportunity to play Illinois -- NIU has been playing basketball since 1900 and Illinois since 1906 -- the Huskies lose their best scorer.

What junior guard Xavier Silas thought was a soft-tissue injury turned out to be a fractured right hand. Silas suffered the injury with 18:18 left in NIU's game at Northwestern on Friday when Jeremy Nash went for the block and smacked him where the thumb and forefinger link, yet he played through it.

NIU says Silas won't need surgery, but will wear a splint and be re-evaluated at Dec. 1. At the minimum, Silas will miss Tuesday's game at Illinois as well as home games with Tennessee State (Friday) and Southeast Missouri State (Sunday) and a trip to Northern Iowa on Nov. 28.

Side thought:
If injuries come in threes, then Northwestern's Welsh-Ryan Arena is done messing with players.
NU senior forward Kevin Coble, who's seeing another foot specialist today, suffered a Lisfranc fracture in practice on Tuesday. There was no contact involved.

Then, about 20 minutes before Silas' injury occurred, NU senior swingman Jeff Ryan tore the ACL in his left knee while trying to make a play near the lane within a few feet of where Silas' injury occurred. I wouldn't say Ryan's injury was a freak thing, because NIU was playing defense and everything, but he just happened to get tangled up in a weird spot. Probably not the conventional way to tear a knee ligament.

LW