Miami forward Sam Waardenburg suffers season-ending foot injury

The Miami Hurricanes basketball program confirmed on Friday that redshirt senior forward Sam Waardenburg will miss the entire 2020-21 season after suffering a left foot injury in practice. 

Miami expects Waardenburg will be out six months because of the setback. 

As university paper The Miami Hurricane noted, Waardenburg will still hold one more year of college eligibility due to an NCAA ruling that provides winter sports athletes with an additional year.

"He was our most-experienced frontcourt player, our leading rebounder from last season, he was practicing extremely well, and we're going to dramatically miss his defense, rebounding, experience, and just his overall demeanor on the court," Miami head coach Jim Larranaga told reporters, per Christopher Stock of 247Sports. 

Waardenburg, listed at 6-foot-10, led the Hurricanes with 6.0 rebounds and 1.1 blocks per game last season. He appeared in 30 games, started in 24 contests and averaged 5.9 points, 1.0 assists and 28.1 minutes while shooting 41.2% from the field. He drained 13-of-52 three-point attempts during the campaign. 

"An injury is detrimental to any team," center Rodney Miller added. "Thankfully we've faced injury before and we know how to combat it. A speedy recovery to Sam and best of luck to him. As far as the bigs, it's next man up. We've got to be there, step up, play our roles, and do what we have to do."

Like other teams around the country, Miami can open the season on Nov. 25. Currently, the Hurricanes only have an ACC/Big Ten Challenge showdown with the Purdue Boilermakers set for Dec. 8 announced on the official schedule. 

Miami went 15-16 overall last season.