With Chasson Randle having moved on, sophomore point guard Robert Cartwright was expected to slide into the starting point guard position for Stanford this season. However injury has led to a change in plans, as Stanford announced Wednesday that Cartwright will miss the entire season after suffering a compound fracture of his right arm in practice on Monday.
Cartwright is the fourth Stanford player to be hit by injury ahead of the upcoming season, with three of those players being expected contributors on the perimeter.
Malcolm Allen, who redshirted last season with a broken wrist, reinjured the wrist during the team’s summer trip to Italy. Marcus Allen, Malcolm’s twin brother and a starter in 23 games last season, is expected to be out of the lineup until December due to a stress fracture in his foot. Also expected back in December is center Grant Verhoeven, who only played in eight games last season due to a hip injury and is currently sidelined after re-aggravating a heel injury suffered in the spring.
That’s quite the list of sidelined players for a team that has to account for the losses of Randle, fellow guard Anthony Brown and center Stefan Nastic from last year’s Postseason NIT champion squad.
With Cartwright out of the lineup it remains to be seen who can take the reins for Johnny Dawkins’ team. Senior Christian Sanders and sophomore Dorian Pickens are the available holdovers on the perimeter, but neither would be classified as a point guard and the same can be said for freshman guard/forward Marcus Sheffield.
Among the games on Stanford’s schedule in November are SMU (November 19), Saint Mary’s (November 22) and Villanova (November 26).
