Cleveland – The hardness of Earl Timberlake is no secret for his Bryant teammates.
Facing the state of Michigan in the first round of the NCAA tournament on Friday night, Timberlake offered him to glimpse him to the rest of the world of university basketball.
The senior guard and the American East player of the year brought an elbow to the forehead of Spartans Carson Cooper that left Timberlake’s face flooded with blood. He left briefly before returning with a white bandage and ended with 14 points, five assists and four rebounds in his last university game.
“If he leaves the floor covered with blood, it is not a clip of ‘a brilliant moment’, I don’t know what it is,” said the Bulldogs coach, Phil Martelli Jr.
Timberlake acknowledged that his head was playing as he answered questions After a loss of 87-62. The Timberlake of 6 feet and 6 became entangled with Cooper 6-11 while fighting for a rebound. He fell briefly to the floor when the officials whistled to Cooper for a lack of loose ball.
When Timberlake sat down, he could say something was wrong.
“The next thing I know is that I’m leaking my face,” Timberlake said. “After that, I’m just thinking: ‘How do I hurry and take care of this to return to my team?'”
Timberlake, who averaged 15.5 points and a level of 8.2 rebounds for the eastern United States champions, lost about four minutes of game time while being cosocated.
Martelli, who led Rhode Island school to his second appearance in the NCAA in his second year as a chief coach, was not really sure of what happened at the beginning. When he saw Timberlake being treated by coaches, he wasting much worry if Timberlake was going back.
“My thought was:” ‘He will clean him and return back, “Martelli said.” And he cleaned it and was back. That is Earl Timberlake. “
Timberlake returned with just over 4 minutes to the end in the first half and stayed on the floor until he finally checked forever with less than 3 minutes and the game decided. He put a towel on his head and had an extended hug with Bryant’s assistant coach Chris Cole to limit three years with the bulldogs who helped him rediscover his passion for basketball.
“Many people do not know that I was in a very dark place a couple of years ago coming from different schools,” said Timberlake, who played in Miami and Memphis before coming to Bryant. “I didn’t even want to play basketball. I don’t thank you for helping me recover love for the game.”
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