Santa Clara loses senior forward Howell for season
By Aaron Juarez
Up until last Friday, the Broncos had been fairly lucky in avoiding the injury bug. Besides the usual aches and pains that accumulate over the course of a season, nothing major had affected the starting line-up.
But Friday, coming down with a rebound in practice, senior center and team co-captain Jim Howell went down after landing awkwardly on a teammate's foot. After having his foot examined by the trainer and subsequently x-rayed, it was revealed that Howell had suffered a broken bone, ending his season. With the loss of Howell, freshman Sean Denison started at center in the Broncos' 93-90 loss to Pepperdine Saturday night.
Denison and sophomores Scott Borchart and Linden Tibbets played in Saturday's contest, combining for eight points and six rebounds.
Without Howell in the line-up, Santa Clara loses not only an experienced player when it comes to battling down low, but also a strong defensive presence. Howell leads the team with 28 blocked shots and is their leading rebounder with 5.6 rebounds per game, including a career-high of 19 on Jan. 18 against Loyola Marymount.
"It's a tremendous loss to our team, because he is probably the heart and soul of our group," Head Coach Dick Davey said. "He's a captain and the leader of our group. We're going to miss him drastically."
The onus of replacing Howell at center will fall mostly to Denison, Tibbets and junior Jordan Legge. Denison, listed at 6-foot-11 and 230 pounds, provides a noticeable presence in the paint. His offensive game is more polished than Howell's, as Denison is shooting 56.9 percent from the field compared to Howell's 46.5 percent. He also has averaged 3.0 points per game in only 11.8 minutes per game. Howell averaged 5.8 points over 25 minutes of work.
"Sean (Denison) stepped in for Jim (Howell) on Saturday night and played pretty well," Associate Head Coach Steve Seandel said about the Pepperdine game. "Sean will work fine. He is a good offensive player."
Still, as a team co-captain, Howell's leadership and experience will be missed. As the most experienced of Santa Clara's big men, his aggressive style of play and ability cannot be replaced overnight. Especially with the West Coast Conference Tournament looming in two weeks, Santa Clara will need to find some way to effectively plug the gap and adjust to the personnel change.
In the long run, getting more crunch-time experience should be good for some of the younger players, especially Denison.
"If there is any silver lining to all of this, it is that Sean (Denison) will get minutes and experience is what everything is all about," Seandel said.
Howell ends his Santa Clara career having averaged 4.6 points points per game â€" on 51.1 percent shooting â€" and 4.4 rebounds per game, and finishes ninth on Santa Clara's all-time career list with 48 blocks.
û Contact Aaron Juarez at (408) 554-4852 or ajuarez@scu.edu.