Gonzaga will get a badly needed player back on the floor in the form of Josh Heytvelt, who is coming back from injury himself: a stress fracture in his foot that he opted to have a pin inserted in rather than have surgery and miss more playing time.

Heytvelt is also taking the long road back from being caught with a mammoth bag of Cali mushrooms in February, an arrest made much worse when the Spokane Review published pictures of the trip-pillow he was carrying around with him. We cut basketball players a good bit more slack than many athletes when it comes to substance abuse. Our childhood greats went around on the court zonked out of their mind on the finest of chiba and God knows what else, especially Robert Parrish, who looked like the Queen Mary chugging into port when he went town the court: a long black shape trailing a dark cloud of smoke.

The odds are stacked enough against even a noted giant-killer like Gonzaga. If Heytvelt wants to attempt to even the score by chomping on a few mushroom muffins and play the whole game swatting at those damn pterodactyls who want the ball, let him.
Just take the wings off the ball, man. Makes this shit so much harder to play than it already is.


Pic courtesy of Dan.