When will Zach Freemantle, Kam Craft return for Xavier basketball?

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One of the key questions surrounding the Xavier University men’s basketball team is how a roster full of first-year Musketeers can build off of the success of last season’s Sweet 16 run.

Xavier lost eight players from last season’s trip to the NCAA Tournament’s regional semifinals and replaced those pieces with four players through the transfer portal and a 2023 recruiting class that is ranked 25th in the nation, according to 247Sports, and second in the Big East behind only defending-national champion Connecticut, which ranks fifth.

More: ‘There was incredible turnover.’ How Sean Miller navigates Xavier’s new-look roster

One obstacle for head coach Sean Miller was the returning production from last year’s squad. Of the four key players back at Cintas Center for another season, three of them have missed the last eight weeks of summer practices while recovering from injuries. Here’s where they stand.

Freemantle, a grad student forward, was Xavier’s leading rebounder (8.1) and second-leading scorer (15.2) last season but suffered a foot injury in a Jan. 28 loss to Creighton that required season-ending surgery in March. One month later, he announced he’d return to Xavier for a fifth season.

Xavier forward Zach Freemantle missed the Musketeers run to the Sweet 16 last year after undergoing season-ending foot surgery.

An initial report from CBSSports’ Jon Rothstein claimed Freemantle would be cleared for basketball activities in July, but that timetable has been pushed back slightly with Freemantle gearing up to practice.

“Zach (Freemantle) is pretty much at the very end of his time, in a way, he’ll return to the program, I’m anticipating toward the end of August,” Xavier head coach Sean Miller said.

Kam Craft

Craft, a sophomore guard from Chicago, came off the bench for 15 games before a knee injury in mid-February forced him to miss over a month before returning for the final minute of Xavier’s Sweet 16 loss to Texas.

Xavier guard Kam Craft (12) is recovering from knee…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/zach-freemantle-kam-craft-return-165534198.html?src=rss

Author : Cincinnati.com | The Enquirer

Publish date : 2023-08-03 16:55:34

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