Injury update: Yoeli Childs out another week, at least

As fun as the Pope Show usually is, it entailed some bad news Tuesday night as BYU Basketball Head Coach Mark Pope updated Greg Wrubell and fans on Yoeli Childs’ finger injury. It was announced Thursday ahead of the Saint Mary’s game in Moraga (which BYU lost in OT) that Childs had dislocated his finger and wouldn’t play.

Now, it looks like the 6’8’’ forward will be out for at least another week. “They’re estimating maybe seven to ten days from now, but it might not be that. It might be two weeks or whatever. But in the meantime, he has to work, and he’s worked hard to get better,” is what Pope said on the show. Let’s hope that the “It might be two weeks or whatever,” part does not come to fruition.

It would never be a good time for BYU to lose Childs, especially since they were already without him due to that [really stupid] NCAA suspension for the first nine games of the season, but BYU’s got a really tough stretch coming up, starting Saturday at no. 1 Gonzaga. Gonzaga definitely looked beatable in their first two WCC games, but without Childs, it will obviously be an even taller order for the Cougs.

After that game in Spokane, the Cougars will be at Pacific and then at San Francisco, two of the harder games on the conference slate. If Childs comes back on the earlier side of Pope’s estimate, he could be back for the Pacific game, but it’s probably more likely that we’ll see him the week after that for the Jan. 30 game vs. Pepperdine at the Marriott Center. That would bring him back just in time for the home rematch against Saint Mary’s. Fingers crossed. We are wishing Yoeli all the best and a quick recovery. It’s a shame to see him miss even one more second of this season. Incidentally, BYU is 13-5 on the season with only one of those five losses coming when Childs was playing (Utah).