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Utah State guard Spencer Butterfield injures hip in loss at Louisiana Tech

Kaza Keane, Spencer Butterfield

Illinois State guard Kaza Keane (0) fouls Utah State guard Spencer Butterfield (21) during an NCAA college basketball game Saturday, Feb. 23, 2013, in Logan, Utah. (AP Photo/The Herald Journal, Eli Lucero)

AP

Given how hard they’ve been hit by injuries this season, it’s amazing that the Utah State Aggies are 19-8 overall. And in their 84-61 loss at No. 25 Louisiana Tech on Thursday night the Aggies saw another key player go down with an injury.

Junior guard Spencer Butterfield injured his right hip in the second half of Thursday’s game, falling awkwardly to the floor and re-aggravating an injury that he suffered earlier in the season.

The injury was bad enough that Butterfield was unable to get off the court under his own power, and team trainers needed to carry him to the locker room as well.

“He is in a ton of pain,” coach Stew Morrill said after the game. “They are taking him to the emergency room. He has had a hip problem he has been playing through and was going to fix it after the season.”

Butterfield has missed just one of Utah State’s 27 games this season, averaging 12.0 points and 6.3 rebounds per game. And with him going down, how much does Utah State have left in the tank with three regular season games and the WAC tournament remaining (and possibly postseason play to follow)?

Danny Berger went into cardiac arrest during a December practice, leading scorer Preston Medlin (fractured wrist) and Kyisean Reed (torn ACL) suffered their injuries in the same game and junior college transfer Sean Harris was ruled out before the season even began due to a knee injury.

Now Butterfield goes down (for an undetermined amount of time), and the lack of bodies late forced Morrill to burn the redshirt of walk-on guard Conner Garner after Marcel Davis fouled out Thursday night.

Utah State has seen three of their top four scorers suffer injuries this season, and if Butterfield is unable to go Saturday at UT-Arlington (Morrill didn’t sound too confident in him being able to go) that would leave forward Jarred Shaw (14.2 ppg, 8.3 rpg) as their lone double-digit scorer.

Raphielle also writes for the NBE Basketball Report and can be followed on Twitter at @raphiellej.