Caris LeVert's Latest Injury Woes Robbing Us of Epic Michigan vs. MSU Showdown

In the state of Michigan, there is a senior point forward with lottery-pick potential and the ability to record a triple-double on any given night. This high-ranking candidate for the various National Player of the Year awards is the driving force of an excellent three-point shooting offense that just might win the 2016 national championship.

That may sound like an introduction for a piece on Denzel Valentine and the Michigan State Spartans, but it's exactly what we could have been saying about Caris LeVert and the Michigan Wolverines.

The idea of those two guys going head-to-head was almost too great to fathom.

Ben Simmons vs. Buddy Hield was fun to hype up as a battle between Player of the Year candidates, but a shooting guard against a power forward? They individually squared off about as often as Stephen Curry and LeBron James in the NBA Finals last year.

LeVert vs. Valentine, though, was supposed to be two of the most unguardable wings in the country guarding each other; two of the nation's most versatile and experienced players waging war against mirror images of themselves.

Unfortunately, left leg injuries have derailed LeVert's path to new heights for a second straight year.

Once upon a time, LeVert was a no-name recruit from Pickerington, Ohio. Or perhaps I should say he was a no-face recruit, because 247Sports didn't even bother to upload a photo of the fifth-highest (aka lowest) rated recruit in Michigan's 2012 class.

According to Mark Snyder of USA Today, the only college that LeVert officially visited in high school was Alabama State. He originally signed with Ohio University and was only able to get out of his national letter of intent after head coach John Groce left the Bobcats to take the job at Illinois.

Needless to say, no one ever expected LeVert to be the most indispensable piece of a program as nationally relevant as Michigan. Nevertheless, that's exactly what he has been for the past two years.

Tony Ding/Associated Press

Shortly after the 2014 NBA draft ended, Bleacher Report's Jonathan Wasserman posted his first 2015 mock draft, in which LeVert was pegged as the eighth overall pick.

"LeVert has gone from a little-known recruit to a star at Michigan," wrote B/R's C.J. Moore in ranking LeVert as his No. 4 overall player in the 2014-15 preseason. "And being a star guard in head coach John Beilein's offense means the accolades and a fat NBA contract are likely to follow."

He wasn't quite that good—and Michigan as a whole was drastically worse than we expected—but he did average 14.9 points, 4.9 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.8 steals for 18 games before suffering a season-ending foot injury.

It wasn't his first issue with that leg, and it turns out it wasn't the last, either.

LeVert had surgery to repair a stress fracture in his left foot in May 2014, and it was a stress fracture in the same foot that cut short his junior season.

"I am familiar with the recovery process and what work lies ahead for me," said LeVert in Michigan's press release on the injury. "I am very confident that I will return 100 percent and have already begun work to ensure that happens."

To his credit, LeVert returned this season at closer to 125 percent.

Through 14 games, LeVert was posting career highs in points, rebounds, assists and both two-point and three-point field-goal percentage.

In fact, his numbers were so good that he is part of a pretty exclusive club of mostly very recognizable names.

Player	School	Points	Rebounds	Assists
Ben Simmons	LSU	19.5	12.5	5.0
Denzel Valentine	Michigan St.	18.5	7.7	6.6
Alex Hamilton	Louisiana Tech	17.8	5.7	6.1
Caris LeVert	Michigan	17.6	5.4	5.2
Kris Dunn	Providence	17.2	6.0	6.9
Gary Payton II	Oregon St.	16.3	8.1	5.5

But then injury struck again.

Late in the Dec. 30 comeback win against Illinois—a game in which he recorded 22 points, 10 assists and five rebounds—LeVert stepped on an opposing player's ankle and suffered what has been cryptically described for weeks as a "lower left leg injury."

He missed the following game against Penn State.

He didn't play against Purdue, either.

Somehow, the Wolverines managed to win a home game against Maryland without him, but he has now missed nine consecutive games with minimal optimism that he'll be back for Saturday's crucial showdown with the in-state rival Spartans.

According to a Jan. 26 report from Tony Paul of the Detroit News, Beilein—who has stated the injury is not related to the recent history of stress fractures—has a timetable for LeVert's return.

Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

He just isn't sharing it.

"When you see him out on the court, you'll know what that timeline looks like," Beilein said more than a week ago.

But there have been three games since that report, and LeVert hasn't touched the floor in any of them—including Tuesday night's loss to Indiana that featured an insane 28-0 run by the Hoosiers.

As a result of that game, the Wolverines are sitting at 17-6 overall with a 7-3 record in Big Ten play. However, they're just 2-6 vs. RPI Top 90 teams and faced a nonconference strength of schedule that ranks outside the Top 100 nationally. That's a resume good enough for a projected tournament bid, but dicey enough that it wouldn't take much of a losing streak to really put them on the bubble.

Moreover, a coveted double bye in the Big Ten tournament might be on the line in Saturday's game, as Michigan and Michigan State are both battling with Purdue for fourth place in the conference standings.

Given the magnitude of the game, maybe LeVert will give it a go against the Spartans.

Don't count on seeing vintage LeVert right away, though.

Valentine missed four games earlier this season while recovering from arthroscopic surgery, and it wasn't until his third game back in the lineup that he really looked like the stud we all fell in love with in November. It was the first time in three-plus seasons that Valentine missed a game due to injury, and he still needed some time to get up to full speed.

LeVert has been out for twice as long and has an injury history, so it would be a pretty big surprise if he can give so much as 15 minutes off the bench.

And that's a crying shame, because this is a huge game for both teams that deserves to be played at full strength.

Recruiting data courtesy of 247Sports.

Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @kerrancejames.