ACL injuries are a fact of life in college sports, but few sports are plagued by the injury as women’s basketball where the ACL injury rate is up to five times that of males. It’s no surprise but still as much of a punch in the gut to learn that Georgia senior wing Christy Marshall tore her ACL on Wednesday and will miss the upcoming season. We wish her a quick and complete recovery.

Marshall was one of three seniors and only five returning players for the Lady Dogs this season. Though she’s struggled on the defensive end during her career, her athleticism makes her a natural scorer, and that contribution will be greatly missed. The injury might mean that freshman star Anne Marie Armstrong gets a lot more playing time than was originally planned.

The team is counting on seven newcomers to bolster the returning players, and reducing that number of returning players by 20% in one swoop isn’t a good thing for the team’s prospects. It doesn’t help that Tamika Willis, one of those newcomers and a top 50 national recruit, won’t join the team until later in the season.

Practice officially begins today for a Lady Dogs team looking to reassert itself after a disappointing 2008-2009 campaign that saw them bounced from the NCAA Tournament in the first round and unable to make a splash even in a down year for the SEC. To say the least, the news that two key players won’t be part of that first practice isn’t the kind of start that Andy Landers wanted.