Dusty May’s Monday press conference previewing Ohio State

No, we don't have a date. We want him to be a part of this stuff. We don't want him to miss the NCAA tournament. We don't want him to miss the Big Ten tournament.

So I think the longer we play, the longer the surgery will be. But no, we don't have a date. Appreciate it. And the medical people, sometimes they want to get all the swelling out.

Sometimes we lean on them. I've, you know, once again, I don't comment on things that I haven't spent a lot of time thinking, studying, reading about. And so when it comes to the medical side, I just lean on our elite support staff.

Yeah, as coaches we always want more. Like, we're continuing to push our players and motivate them to be better to do more and get better in this area, that area. But when you look back to where he was in November to where he is now, man, he's come a long way. And he's still scratching the surface.

As you saw a couple of the plays last night, he had one rebound that I was even— I was shocked he could jump that high. And so because he's so new to the game, that he doesn't— he doesn't understand how impactful he can be, and he's already incredibly impactful. I mean, to me, there's— if he's not Big Ten Player of the Year, then I'll be shocked.

But whatever, I mean, he's done everything. He's, like I said, he's outperformed his contract, he's outperformed all expectations up to this point, but he still has to get better. And we still have one big goal to chase, actually two big goals to chase, in the Big Ten Tournament Championship and then the NCAA Tournament.

And when you talk about how guys are going to play? I'll answer kind of how I think you wanted to be answered. You know, Roddy Gayle, immediately when it happened, I went to Roddy Gayle and just said, man, this is a great opportunity for you to really get back into playing longer and longer stretches for— and being more aggressive. And the same thing with Trey.

Trey, this is an opportunity for you to play a little bit of a different role and evolve into more of a point role than just a wing role. And so you go down the line, number Nimari Burnett, this is an opportunity to play a little more minutes. Like all the guys that were going to benefit from L.J.'s misfortune, it gives them a chance to grow and develop.

And like everything else, we look at it as a positive. Obviously, L.J. was— he's built for certain games, and he was playing as well as— I mean, he was playing as well as anyone on our roster when he went down. And so the timing of it wasn't perfect, but it's— once again, it's opportunity. Day for other guys to step up, and L.J. got it.

He was a big part of us getting to this point, and now we've all got to give a little bit more to get over the hump without—