COLLEGE PARK — The injuries have spread over 10 months and parts of two Maryland men's basketball seasons.
Finally, senior forward Evan Smotrycz seems ready to declare himself healthy — or as healthy as he has been in a while.
Coming off a season-high 25 minutes in Wednesday's 68-66 win over Indiana at Xfinity Center, Smotrycz is looking to build on what he considers two of his best back-to-back performances of this season when the No. 19 Terps play at Penn State on Saturday.
Against the Hoosiers, Smotrycz had seven points and four rebounds. In Sunday's 71-55 loss at Iowa, his first start this season, Smotrycz had five points, four rebounds and a career-high three blocks in 21 minutes.
After missing the Terps' first five games and eight of 10 to start the year with a broken left foot, then a sprained left ankle, Smotrycz struggled with his conditioning and timing when he returned in late December. He suffered a hairline fracture in the tip of his right thumb against Michigan State on Jan. 17., a Maryland athletic department spokesman said Friday.
Smotrycz kept playing with a protective cast on his right (shooting) hand before removing it for the Iowa game.
"I think lately, I've been getting back in the flow," Smotrycz said Friday before practice. "After they took the cast off my thumb, I've been able to feel the ball a little more. It's kind of hard to handle it when it's on your dominant hand. My body feels good. I want to be playing my best basketball toward this time of year, so things are coming around."
It has been a long time coming for a player who entered his senior year as the team's third-leading returning scorer (11 points per game) and leading returning rebounder (six per game). As a junior, Smotrycz started 28 of 31 games, scored in double figures 19 times and had a team-high three double doubles.
Then, at the tail end of last season, the rash of injuries started.
After scoring 13 points in the first half of an overtime March 9 win over visiting Virginia in the Terps' final regular-season Atlantic Coast Conference game, Smotrycz was said to have suffered back spasms at halftime. He didn't score in the second half, though he played a team-high 39 minutes.
Smotrycz then sat out Maryland's season finale, a 67-65 loss to Florida State in the opening game of the ACC tournament. Though it was never announced, Smotrycz said Friday that he suffered a stress fracture in his back sometime during the Virginia game. "It's been tough," he said.
For a player whose offense revolves around his 3-point shooting, the thumb injury was especially difficult. He has made 16 of his past 34 field goals (47.1 percent), including seven of 18 3-pointers, over the past nine games.
"It's tough to shoot when you have something on your thumb [of your shooting hand], let alone [when] it's hurting like that," Smotrycz said. "No excuses, but it's not easy."
Asked whether he considered allowing the thumb to heal before playing again, Smotrycz said: "I would've sat out, [but] we're too good. I feel like I can help the team in too many ways to sit out. I think we have a chance to do something special."
After starting most of last season at power forward and expecting to start as a senior, Smotrycz has adjusted to his role backing up junior Jake Layman at power forward and sophomore Damonte Dodd at center.
"Defensively, I think I'm a pretty good positional defensive player," said Smotrycz, whose defense has improved since last season. "I'm not going to get off the floor to block shots like some of the other guys, but I can guard the post fine. I can guard the perimeter."
Maryland coach Mark Turgeon said one of the reasons Smotrycz remained in the team's rotation despite his earlier shooting woes was that "he is a smart player. He gets guys all in the right spots."
If Smotrycz is hitting his shots, he can be effective when Layman and senior guard Dez Wells post up down low. A creative passer, Smotrycz tends to get in trouble when he tries to do too much with the ball, such as leading the break himself after a rebound. (He played point guard on the youth team his dad, Zee, coached).
Turgeon has been supportive of Smotrycz throughout the season and acknowledged after the Indiana game that "he looked like Evan Smotrycz. He hadn't looked like Evan at all this year. It was good to see. It's been a struggle, been a tough year."
As he heads toward Maryland's Senior Day on Feb. 28 — and his long-awaited reunion with Michigan, where he played his first two seasons before transferring — Smotrycz said he is "just trying to stay positive. I've said it [to the media] a bunch of times; it's the same old story. I want to play my best toward the end of the year and March, and hopefully, it's moving toward that."
He also doesn't want to jinx himself.
"I'd never been hurt" before, Smotrycz said. "They say it comes in threes. I've got my three, and I'm done."