Maryland PF Ivan Bender has fractured wrist, return timetable unclear

Maryland basketball forward Ivan Bender fractured his wrist in practice last weekend, and head coach Mark Turgeon doesn’t know when he’ll be back, he said in a conference call with reporters on Thursday.

Bender, a redshirt sophomore, was poised to see a big uptick in minutes this season. He came to the team midway through the 2014-15 season and served a redshirt year before playing in 10 games last season, averaging 1.8 points per game to go along with this fast-break dunk against St. Francis.

Turgeon had previously called Bender the team’s “biggest surprise” this season and said he would have started at power forward had the team played an actual game last week.

Bender’s injury means L.G. Gill is all but guaranteed to start at power forward, with versatile freshman Justin Jackson likely seeing more minutes there as well. It also means we could end up seeing more of the double-big lineup Turgeon employed for stretches last season, with centers Damonte Dodd and Michal Cekovsky on the court at the same time.