Lorenzo Brown trying to return for Duke game
NC State star junior point guard Lorenzo Brown tried to practice Monday, but after a few minutes was shut down to give his ankle injury more time to heal.
NC State plays at No. 4-ranked Duke at 9 p.m. Thursday at Cameron Indoor Stadium. The Wolfpack won the previous meeting 84-76 at PNC Arena in Raleigh on Jan. 12.
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Brown will likely be a game-time decision Thursday.
"Lorenzo could not practice yesterday," NCSU coach Mark Gottfried said. "He tried to some, but I think he's still a few days away. We'll just have to wait and see and go day-by-day. It's hard for me to imagine that he's going to be 100 percent by Thursday night, but again, I don't know that."
NC State had Brown undergo an X-Ray and nothing serious was found. He has been undergoing round the clock treatment, which will continue.
Gottfried wants to see how he responds to planting, cutting, moving and jumping, before he'll be ruled ready to go.
"There is a lot that he has to get from here to there, but there is a lot of room in-between there and he has a long ways to go," Gottfried said.
Brown had 12 points and 13 assists in the upset of then No. 1-ranked Duke. He subsequently got injured in the 58-55 loss at Virginia on Jan. 29, and missed the 79-78 loss to Miami last Saturday.
Freshmen Rodney Purvis got the start at point guard against the Hurricanes, but Gottfried turned to freshman classmate Tyler Lewis after a few minutes. Lewis responded with the best game of his young college career with 16 points and five assists, but was a jumper away from probably pulling off the victory in the final 15 seconds. However, big Reggie Johnson tipped in a Shane Larkin miss to win it for the Hurricanes with 0.8 seconds left.
"We were winning the game with 0.9 and then we don't win," Gottfried said. "It's interesting sometimes with just a tip with one second how the feeling of everything can change. Obviously, if they don't get the tip-in, we are walking around here with our chest poked out and we are excited."
Brown had tested his ankle prior to tipoff, but was ruled out and cheered his teammates from the bench.
"Tyler stepped up and was good," Gottfried said. "I thought Tyler had a lot of success with some ball-screen action. We kept going to it, maybe more than we normally had. That's kind of a game-by-game feel."
NC State senior wing Scott Wood also spoke to the media Tuesday.
Click below to listen to their interviews: