LITTLE ROCK – After strong season as a true freshman in
2010-11, a knee injury suffered in a pickup game the following summer forced
Gus
Leeper to miss all of 2011-12. Leeper returned last season, but
another leg injury in the Trojans’ season opener kept him out the following ten
games, hurting his conditioning and creating another mental setback that comes
with overcoming an injury. Finally healthy as he begins his junior year, Leeper
feels like his conditioning and confidence is back where it needs to be.
“Yes, definitely my conditioning is a lot better,” said Leeper. “I feel like
I’m close to where I was my freshman year. I’ve lost about eight or nine pounds
over the summer, and I look a lot better, feel a lot better and am running a lot
better. I don’t really have any pain in my knee or my shin and that’s helped a
lot.”
Assistant coach Joe
Kleine agrees that Leeper’s conditioning has overall physical state
has improved over the summer.
“Much better,” said Kleine. “He’s stronger. He’s running as well as he’s ever
run. He was lacking a lot of confidence last year, understandably so, coming off
basically a year and a half of inactivity. I’m sure there was some fear every
time he pressed or pushed off with his leg. I think the last 10 games of the
year we started to see a little better from him. It’s just slowly gotten better
through Canada, through practice, you can see that he’s confident, he’s stronger
and that there’s no hesitation with worrying about his knee. “
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