Zag bites: Knight's pain won't subside

The injury-marred college career of Sealth High product Erroll Knight appears headed for an ending at Gonzaga with a role as a cameo contributor...

The injury-marred college career of Sealth High product Erroll Knight appears headed for an ending at Gonzaga with a role as a cameo contributor.

"When he comes to a stop," Gonzaga coach Mark Few said this week, "bones just grind on each other."

Knight has been hampered by thumb, wrist and knee injuries since he arrived at Gonzaga in 2002 after transferring from Washington. His latest problems have involved infection in a knee and damaged articular cartilage, or the junction where it meets the bone.

Knight sat out the first eight Gonzaga games and has appeared only sparingly since. Few describes it as a condition in which the "pain doesn't allow the muscles to fire" when Knight stops or gathers himself to jump.

It's an untenable situation for one of the best athletes on the team. Few says Knight, a fifth-year senior, can still get in better game shape, but any long-term recovery will come well after the season ends.

Woes on defense

Knight's absence is one reason Gonzaga has struggled consistently on defense, allowing 44.6-percent field-goal shooting. Memphis and St. Joseph's combined to shoot 51 percent last week, which could be partly attributable to a long, arduous November-December schedule that included trips to Maui, Seattle (twice), St. Louis and Memphis.

"That could play into it," Few says. "But it's been a problem throughout 13 games."

Few called the early schedule "one of the toughest in the country when you take into account the injuries, where we've been and what we've done."

Indeed, it probably was the nation's toughest; Gonzaga played seven BCS schools plus Memphis and St. Joseph's. Now it begins the new, TV-driven Saturday-Monday West Coast Conference schedule, starting at St. Mary's on Saturday night.

Bud Withers

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