Mangrum injured again

[Marty]

Howe’s Mangrum will miss playoffs

Knee injury leaves Bulldogs short vs. surging Bobcats

By Bill Spinks

Herald Democrat

The question being asked in both Howe and Celina is: Will Collin Mangrum play tonight, or won’t he?

According to Howe head coach Tim Rose, the Bulldogs’ standout senior guard will miss tonight’s game at McKinney High School as he continues to recover from a knee injury and is likely out for the rest of the playoffs.

But Celina head coach Troy Davis is preparing his team as if it’ll face the North Texas early signee and McDonald’s All-American nominee in the area round of the Class 2A Region II playoffs.

“We’re planning for him,” Davis said Thursday. “That kind of kid, if there’s any way possible, I know he’ll be out there.”

Mangrum, who missed several games in midseason with an ankle sprain, suffered a knee injury two weeks ago in practice and hasn’t played since.

He is averaging 28.9 points, 12.4 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 3.4 steals for the Bulldogs, who reached the Class 2A state tournament a year ago.

“It’s an injury that requires 2-to-4 weeks,” Rose said. “This is the second week, and he’s got two more weeks to rehab it. With him, we’ve got a good chance, but without him, we lose 30 points a game, and that’s tough to make up.

“But our kids play hard, and if the other team has an off night, anything can happen,” Rose added. “It’s a tribute to the kids to get to where they are now.”

Without Mangrum, the Bulldogs will have their hands full against a team making a rare push into the boys’ basketball area round after staying in football deep into December.

Celina has plenty of hoops talent, despite the dismissal of leading scorer Alan Jones from the team a month ago. Without Jones, the Bobcats have won eight of their last nine, and ran the table in the second half of a brutal District 13-2A slate to tie Krum for second place.

“All the kids here love Alan, everybody in school loves Alan, and no doubt we’d be a better team with him,” Davis said. “But we’ve also come together. Like Celina kids do all the time, they get a little adversity, and they work through it and they wind up better for it.”

In the past, Celina’s football success has been at the expense of basketball. The Bobcats’ hoops season didn’t start until Dec. 19, two days after their football team wrapped up its seventh state title with a 28-12 win over Omaha Paul Pewitt.

“Usually we get a late start in basketball, and we don’t have basketball players, we have football players playing basketball,” said senior Nathan Tune. “Celina’s never been past the second round, so if we can do that, that’ll be something new for the school.”

The Bobcats (14-6) rely heavily on the 6-foot-4 Tune, who averaged 17.1 points per game in the regular season. Tune hit for 25 points in Celina’s 79-48 bi-district rout of Italy.

“When Nathan’s on a roll, he’s hard to stop,” Davis said. “The other guys do a good job getting it to him. Our guys are good about finding the hot guy.”

Besides Tune, the Bobcats have other scoring options. Sophomore Seth Davis and juniors Jamie Blatnick and Dru Prosser — all of whom, like Tune, helped lead Celina to the state football championship — all reached double figures in the scoring column on Tuesday.

[cdawgrun]

Mangrum is out with a torn MCL and a strained ACL, I hear there are other complications..but not sure..Mangrum will for sure be out remainder of the playoffs. Hope he has a speedy recovery.

[bigrobdsp]

sit him down and rest him.

[Buford_Julep]

I wish I had read this post before driving from Denton to McKinney on a rain-soaked Friday night.

Mangrum's dad told me Collin has a slight tear in his MCL (ligament). He said surgery will not be needed and it should be completely healed within 6 weeks. Collin was not in uniform for the game, but he sat on the players bench. He had no crutches and was not wearing any braces or casts. He walked without a limp.

The bad news was Howe lost to Celina 55-45, but the good news is this injury will be forgotten before next fall practices start.

[Cooley]

On another signee note, I just made it back from the rain slick roads from Garland's new Special Events Center. (Watching Dallas Lincoln's girls lose to Waxahachie) UNT signee Torrian Timms (Waxahachie) had about 6 or 8 points and a number of rebounds. Waxahachie advances to Austin next week by playing a nice team game against a much smaller but talented Lincoln squad (going away 57-39)

Timms looks like the 3rd best player on their team. Their shooting guard Nickie Hughes has signed with UT and their point guard (Destiny Hughes) looks like a nice propect as well. Though Timms does not have an offensive game, she has a nice big body at 6-0 to bang down low for Slinker next year.