Hoops Hurts

It was apparently an unpleasant offseason for the Georgia men's basketball team. Dennis Felton ran off a long list of injuries to key players Tuesday, and women's coach Andy Landers added one of his own, too.

TREY THOMPKINS (Fr-F) is recovering from both a stress fracture in his foot and a sprained MCL. He was wearing a knee brace to protect his left knee Tuesday, but said the injury was healing well and he expected to be ready by early next week.

Said Felton: "Trey was having a very, very good summer for an incoming freshman in terms of doing all the things he needed to do to get ready for his freshman campaign. Then later in the summer, he developed a stress fracture in his foot that put him out for about six weeks. So when he came back and started working out, Trey still wasn't ready to be active. We were slowly working him back into activity and his foot was coming along and doing fine, healing just like we'd like it to, but his conditioning really suffered from the time off. He gained some weight, just fell out of condition like you would expect an athlete to do after being out of activity for six weeks. Trey was just starting to work back in and we were slowly escalating his activity to bring him back without jeopardizing or reinjuring his foot. Then a couple weeks ago, he was playing pickup and sprained the MCL ligament in his knee which put him on the shelf again. So Trey hasn't done anything now for about three weeks and will miss the beginning of practice with that injury."

JEREMY PRICE (So-F) had offseason ankle surgery to clean up calcium from an old injury. This is similar to what wide receiver Tony Wilson just had done that has cost him the rest of the football season.

Said Felton: "Jeremy had offseason ankle surgery to clean up some stuff in his ankle. He didn't experience any trauma, but he had an old ankle injury from high school and as it healed, it kind of formed some calcium deposits and started building more and more and interfered with his ligament. So Jeremy had ankle pain through a good portion of last season. The doctors decided to go in there and clean it up this summer, so Jeremy missed a good portion of the summer recovering from that ankle, but he's doing very well and should be 100 percent."

CHRIS BARNES (So-F) had surgery on his right wrist, also for an old injury, and is working his way back now.

Said Felton: "He had old injuries -- didn't experience any trauma since he's been at Georgia -- but had old injuries that was creating ligament issues in his wrist. There was some speculation as to what the best course was between surgery or not surgery. Chris decided on surgery, and it was a good thing he did because when they got in there they saw that it was a little more than what showed up on x-rays. Chris missed a good piece of the spring and all summer being in a cast after wrist surgery. He has started to work his way back into action in the last four weeks. When we started school and we started individual workouts again, he could do everything except use his right hand. So what we've done -- it's really been a blessing for him because Chris had no left hand when he got here. Last year, we always had to stay on him to even try to use his left hand, especially outside of drills. He would do it in drills, but in playing action, he didn't have the confidence to use it. Well, for most of this preseason while his right wrist has been out of commission, we've had to spend all of his individual work time doing all left-handed stuff. In our workouts now -- he's pretty much doing everything now -- and in our workouts, he's probably had two left-handed baskets to every one right-handed. He's really excited about that and proud of his development. He should be in good shape to go at the beginning of the season, although we still have to be protective of that right wrist."

EBUKA ANYAORAH (Fr-G) had to undergo surgery for a stress fracture in his leg and will miss the season.

Said Felton: "Around the same time that Trey developed his stress fracture in his foot, he developed a stress fracture in his leg. His was more serious, more pronounced. Ebuka and his family and the doctors speculated on whether to rest it or do surgery. The decision during the summer was to rest it with the hopes that he would be pretty much ready to go by the beginning of practice time. As we've slowly worked him back from his stress fracture, it's worked out that he continued to have pain. So Ebuka had to have surgery to have a rod placed in his leg to stabilize that bone (Tuesday) so it looks like he'll redshirt and not be able to play this season."

NICOLE STROUD (RFr-F) has a knee injury that may require surgery.

Said Landers: "Nicole Stroud had had knee surgery in high school and came in last year and participated good to about this point in time, and we had to go back into that knee. (Now) there's been some swelling that we can't explain that really concerns us. She had (surgery) in high school and a year ago about this time, and now is going back to the doctor this week to have it looked at again, and perhaps surgery or some sort of procedure will be necessary to get her some relief."