PC coach Tim Welsh has seen his share of injured players during his tenure.

Providence Journal / Ruben W. Perez

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Trainers and x-ray technicians have never been more important parts of the Big East scene than in this basketball season.

Injuries in sports are unavoidable but the damage inflicted on several Big East teams this winter has brought an unusual amount of pain to many teams. Providence, Marquette, Villanova, Louisville and Pittsburgh have all been hit hard. And then there’s Syracuse.

Jim Boeheim has coached for nearly 30 years at his alma mater but never before has he experienced the frustration of facing the crux of Big East play with his two best outside shooters, Andy Rautins and Eric Devendorf, sitting behind his bench with season-ending knee injuries. That’s the main reason Syracuse has lost four of five games heading into this afternoon’s matchup with Providence College at the Carrier Dome.

“We’re so short-handed,” Boeheim said. “We have eight players, plus three walk-ons. You really can’t practice much like that and that hurts us too because we’re so young.”

The healthy Syracuse players don’t know their way around the conference. Three Orange starters are freshmen. Two more frosh, plus a junior college transfer, make up the bench. That’s six first-year players out of SU’s eight-man rotation.

Syracuse began this season with 12 players on scholarship. Rautins tore his knee up in the summer playing for Canada in an international tournament. Devin McBride was also hurt at the start of the year and the team’s only senior, guard Josh Wright, left school at mid-semester sue to academic troubles. But when Devendorf suffered his knee injury in mid-December, the Orange’s hopes for yet another strong season were severely jeopardized.

Now Boeheim’s plans rest squarely on the shoulders of freshmen Donte Greene and Jonny Flynn. Both are extremely talented and, as they showed in a thrilling 64-62 overtime defeat at No. 9 Georgetown, very dangerous. But the Big East has a way of eating its young, especially on the road when SU is 0-3 in the league.

“They’ve done everything I could hope for at this stage but it’s very hard,” said Boeheim.

Syracuse isn’t the only team playing with a key injury or two. Pittsburgh has lost starters Levance Fields and Mike Cook. Louisville played without David Padgett and Juan Palacios for the season’s opening month. Villanova has lost starting center Casiem Drummond. Dominic James, Marquette’s leader, is playing through a sprained wrist.

Providence (12-6, 3-3 Big East) has tried to overcome the loss of starting point guard Sharaud Curry and met with mixed results. Coach Tim Welsh has chosen not to rule Curry out for the season, publicly at least, until the junior from Atlanta is available to practice. Until then, the coach has said there is no decision to be made. “His status is still up in the air. He’ll be in a boot for at least another week,” Welsh said three days ago.

However it would be a major surprise if Curry returns this season. His broken foot remains in a Tom Brady-like boot, according to doctor’s orders. With just 11 games remaining after today, Curry would have to be cleared to practice, work into game shape and find his way into an established rotation. That all seems highly unlikely, if not impossible.

Welsh did speak this week on the impact not having Curry available has meant to the PC program. Last summer, Curry and forward Jonathan Kale shared billing as the stars of the team’s trip to Italy. Curry’s turnovers were down, assists were up and the scoring skills that made him such a weapon over his first two collegiate seasons were still very much intact.

“When you build for your season, you plan around your leading returning scorers and players. This was a curve ball in our planning,” Welsh said. “We’ve had to adjust in a lot of areas, our schemes, our rotations, and just understanding how we’re going to play every night.”

The Friars also lost backup point guard Dwain Williams for a stretch, but he’s healthy again. PC has been riddled with injuries to key players during Welsh’s tenure, which is why he’s chosen to carry a full 13-man roster this season.

“Some teams can deal with it better than others,” he said. “We’ve had more than our share of [injuries] and been caught short before. That’s really why we decided to go to the max with our scholarships and we’ve been fortunate we did that [for this season]. You’ve got to carry a full roster as a precautionary measure. There’s only so much [assistant coach] Allen Griffin can do for us in practice.”

kmcnamar@projo.com