Baylor Forward Tristan Clark Retires from College Basketball
Baylor Bears forward Tristan Clark retired from college basketball on Tuesday.
Clark made the announcement on Twitter, citing the inability to rehabilitate the knee injury that derailed his 2018-19 season.
Thank you Basketball pic.twitter.com/WWC7EjsVcu
— TClark (@TristanClark25) November 17, 2020
The 6-foot-10 Clark entered this season coming off a 2019-20 in which he averaged just 4.9 points and 2.4 rebounds per game, the result of both his knee rehabilitation and the emergence of Freddie Gillespie at forward.
But, in 2018-19, Clark was one of the best players in the Big 12. He played just 14 games due to that knee injury, but he averaged 14.6 points and 6.3 rebounds per game and helped jump-start Baylor’s rise in the second half of that season, and its rise to being the nation’s No. 1 team for much of last season.
Had Clark remained healthy in 2018-19, its likely he would have been on the All-Big 12 First-Team.
Clark spoke with SicEm365.com’s David Smoak on his daily radio show on Thursday about the decision.
…when the mental part of it was harder than the physical part and I needed to make sure I took care of myself going forward." I'm going to use my pain and frustration of what I went through and use as motivation to help people and impact the world."
— David Smoak (@DavidSmoak) November 18, 2020
Clark’s departure opens up some playing time in the frontcourt, as the Bears were hoping Clark could soak up some of the minutes leftover by Gillespie’s departure. That role inside, at least early on, might fall to junior Flo Thamba, a 6-foot-10 forward who has been in the Bears’ pipeline for quite some time. Thamba has averaged just 1.9 points and 2.1 rebounds for his Bears career, but has averaged just 9.7 minutes.
Also watch 6-foot-8 forward Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua, who sat out last year after transferring from UNLV. In his one season at UNLV he averaged 3.4 points, 3.5 rebounds and 0.7 blocks in 13.3 minutes per game.
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