Gophers basketball standout Mara Braun out indefinitely with broken foot bone again

Mara Braun, leading scorer for the Gophers women’s basketball team, has broken the same bone in her right foot that required surgery last season, and she’s sidelined indefinitely.

“The chances of that [same injury] are incredibly slim, but unfortunately, it happened,” Gophers coach Dawn Plitzuweit said Friday.

Plitzuweit said Braun, a junior from Wayzata, is meeting with top foot specialists and “assessing the best plan moving forward.”

“It’s too premature to know what that looks like,” Plitzuweit said. “We don’t know when she will be back, whether this year or beyond. The most important thing is her long-term health and getting her back to play at the highest level that she was playing at. She has a long basketball career ahead of her.”

Braun sat on the team bench wearing a walking boot Wednesday as the team improved to 6-0 with an 81-52 victory against Eastern Illinois. She broke that same foot in that morning’s shootaround, planting and making what Plitzuweit described as “a basketball move.”

“She’s someone who has approached this with an incredible attitude and demeanor, and you saw that if you were at our game Wednesday,” Plitzuweit said.

Braun first broke that bone in her right foot Jan. 28 in Illinois. After hitting a three-pointer early in the fourth quarter, she landed on an Illinois defender. After surgery, Braun missed almost a full two months. She returned for two victories as the Gophers began their WNIT tournament run before hurting the foot again.

The Gophers are 21-5 since the start of last season with Braun in the lineup, 5-10 without her.

“We’ve been through this before,” Plitzuweit said. “Different players will have to step up. You don’t replace Mara with one player because of all the things she brings to the game. … We have to learn to play together in a little different way ... and find a way to make us different, make us able to attack in a different way.”

Braun was the team’s leading scorer when injured last year and is again this year, averaging 13.6 points.

“People often forget how good Mara Braun is, how good she is defensively,” Plitzuweit said. “Her basketball IQ is off the charts. There are times we have to play different players to help us out on one end of the court over the other. We still have to put that all together. That’s why we practice.”

Plitzuweit said other players grew their games when Braun was sidelined last season — and expects the same to happen or continue again. She mentioned how junior guard Amaya Battle and sophomore guard/forward Grace Grocholski have done so and how junior forward Mallory Heyer has become a better ballhandler.

“We learned a lot from last year,” Battle said. “We know what to expect now. We’re just more mature. Our freshmen now are sophomores, and us sophomores, now we’re juniors. I think that helps. … Anytime you have to step into an opportunity you haven’t done before, it does give you the opportunity to grow.”

The lessons learned included that no one player can replace their best player.

“Continue to play as a team, play unselfishly, move the ball around,” Heyer said. “Don’t try to do too much. Do whatever the team needs on both ends of the floor and just step up as vocal leaders.”

Plitzuweit praised Braun’s character, values, maturity and “incredible professionalism” for how she is handling this setback.

“She’s 21 years old,” Plitzuweit said. “I don’t know how she developed that.”

To do their part to help Braun on her road back, teammates put together a gift basket to cheer her.

“Just trying to support, just be around her,” Battle said.

Some of the items: A Build-A-Bear, some snacks, lip products she likes, a “cute” blanket, Battle said.

“And some Tylenol,” Heyer said.