Tech's Lammers rests ankle in hopes of second-half run
With final exams approaching, you’ll find Ben Lammers in his room studying. That’s what you do when there’s only a couple of classes standing between you and mechanical engineering degree. But this week the senior is likely to do so with his long legs propped up and absorbing as little stress as possible.
Lammers, the center on the Georgia Tech basketball team, isn’t being lazy. He’s just got to keep as much weight off that ankle as possible so he’ll be ready to play when the season resumes next Sunday. Lammers has had his season derailed so far by an injury suffered about three weeks ago.
“We’ve got to get Ben healthy,” Georgia Tech coach Josh Pastner said. “I love this guy, but he’s been out of synch and we’ve got to get him healthy again.”
The problem has been the inability of Lammers to practice since spraining his ankle against Texas-Rio Grande. He’s had limited conditioning work in an effort to keep him healthy enough to play, but hasn’t had a real practice for nearly three weeks. Pastner hopes that will change now that the big senior from San Antonio has a few days to stay off his feet.
“I just want to get healthy again and help our team,” Lammers said.
Lammers hasn’t been bad. He’s averaging 14.3 points and 8.1 rebounds. He’s only six points away from reaching the 800-point plateau and recently recorded the 38th double-figure game of his career. But he hasn’t been the Lammers they expected—not the one who was first-team All-ACC and the ACC Defensive Player of the Year last season.
That’s not completely his fault. Not only is he injured, but he’s playing without the team’s offensive spark-plug. Josh Okogie, last year’s leading scorer, has yet to play because of a six-game suspension and a dislocated finger.
“I said when the season started that we had to keep Josh, Ben and Tadric (Jackson) healthy all season,” Pastner said. “We haven’t had all three of them in a game yet and sometimes we’ve only had one.”
Lammers has suffered through the early portion of the season without complaint. He’ll talk about the injury, but only if asked, and he never uses it as an excuse. And he never leaves the court. Lammers leads the ACC with 36.2 minutes played per game.
“Right now we’re very limited,” Pastner said. “Sometimes we’ll have two or three guys on the court that the other team doesn’t even guard.” That makes it tough for the team to get the ball to Lammers, who is a magnet for double and triple teams.
Lammers made great strides between his sophomore season, when he was a limited role player, and his junior season, when he was a main contributor. He never considered jumping to the NBA, although there was some talk about the move.
“I enjoy Georgia Tech,” Lammers said. “You have people talk to you and tell you, but I was happy where I was at. I like Georgia Tech a lot. It’s done a lot for me. Figure I might as well stick around for another year and help them out as much as I can and then if (the NBA) works out the next year, it works out the next year.”
This story was originally published December 9, 2017 at 8:49 PM with the headline "Tech's Lammers rests ankle in hopes of second-half run."