WVU’s Isaiah Cottrell to miss rest of season with Achilles injury
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The end of 2020 has brought tough news to the West Virginia men’s basketball team.
Isaiah Cottrell, the highly touted 6-foot-10 freshman from Las Vegas, will miss the rest of the 2020-21 season after suffering a torn Achilles tendon in his left leg in the first half of Tuesday’s game with Northeastern, the Mountaineers athletic department announced Wednesday morning.
“Everyone associated with Mountaineer basketball is saddened by the news that we received on Isaiah,” coach Bob Huggins said in a statement released in connection to the announcement.
“Isaiah is a great teammate, a wonderful kid and a hard worker who will do everything asked of him to get back to 100% and back on the court.”
The injury occurred with about five minutes remaining in the first half. He had played five minutes off the bench and recorded one rebound and one assist.
Cottrell saw action each of WVU’s first 10 games and averaged 1.6 points and 1.4 rebounds.
Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers? I’ll be back soon
— Isaiah Cottrell (@IsaiahCottrell) December 30, 2020
Before his arrival in Morgantown, Cottrell played the 2019-20 season at Huntingdon (W.Va.) Prep under coach Arkell Bruce.
He earned MaxPreps All-America honors after averaging 18.9 points, 9.3 rebounds and 2.0 blocks per game for an Iron team which won 22 games against a national schedule.
Cottrell also attended Bishop Gorman in Las Vegas during his time in the prep ranks. He averaged 15.2 points, 9.3 rebounds and 4.3 blocks as Bishop Gorman captured the 2018-19 Nevada Class 4A state title.
The 73-51 win over Northeastern puts WVU at 8-2 overall. The Mountaineers, 1-1 in Big 12 play, will return to conference action at 4 p.m. Saturday at Oklahoma.