USA wins, WSU loses: Casto knee injury more serious than thought

by Jeff Nusser on Jul 8, 2009 11:37 AM PDT

Team USA wrapped up intermediate pool play in the FIBA U19 tournament by squeaking out a 76-69 win over Lithuania, but that wasn't the most pressing news coming out of New Zealand yesterday.

No, in an apparent attempt by the basketball gods to slap me back into my proper place after yesterday's headline, came the following news (thanks selahcoug and Roy Weaver Stuckey):

SPOKANE -- As first reported on KREM 2 News at ten o'clock tonight, former Ferris star and current Washington State University basketball player DeAngelo Casto needs surgery on his injured knee.

Now, before we all freak out about the dreaded s-word, here's something to keep in mind: We just don't know the extent of the injury.

Here's what we do know. USA Basketball is calling it a "torn meniscus." A quick check of meniscus injuries at WebMD reveals that there is a wide variety of severity and treatment with regards to such injuries. Here's what a torn meniscus looks like (Casto would have just one of those tears, not four):

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via img.webmd.com

If the KREM report is accurate -- color me skeptical about unsourced, "person close to Casto" reporting -- and the timetable is expected to be four to six weeks, then it's likely just a partial horizontal tear that can be sewn together. Clearly not the worst news possible. Still, you never want to hear the words "knee surgery" linked to your up-and-coming frontcourt star, on whom you're planning to depend heavily in the upcoming season, especially since meniscus injuries are sometimes discovered to be worse than thought once the surgery is begun.

As for Klay Thompson had his usual ho-hum line against the Lithuanians: 10 points (second on the team), 7 rebounds (second), 3 assists (second) and one steal in 22 minutes. Yup, he's still good.

The undefeated Americans now move on to the single-elimination tournament, taking on Canada in the quarterfinals early Friday morning at 1:30 a.m. No word yet on whether it's going to be televised.

The other undefeated team is none other than Australia, which had to come from behind in the second half to beat Croatia, 79-74. Brock Motum had by far his worst game of the tournament: 10 points, 1 rebound, 1 assist, 5 turnovers. But the Aussies survived nonetheless, and appear to be on a crash course with Team USA, which they would meet in the gold medal game.

I would pony up for FIBATV for that one.

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Comments

When is he having the surgery?

Hopefully it will be a relatively short recovery period for him.

by SW WA Coug on Jul 8, 2009 11:52 AM PDT reply actions

Hopefully there will be official word from the university soon

CougCenter

by Jeff Nusser on Jul 8, 2009 1:12 PM PDT up reply actions

At WSU, the other shoe ALWAYS drops.

I swear we are always punished for optimism.

I never really liked the old tagline.

CougCenter

by Craig Powers on Jul 8, 2009 12:02 PM PDT reply actions 1 recs

If it's going to happen....

I’d much rather it happen now than during the season.

by SW WA Coug on Jul 8, 2009 2:11 PM PDT up reply actions

Very true

But off-season injuries can have a huge impact on the development on a young, raw player like Deangelo. I would be willing to bet that improvement we saw out of Aron Baynes at the end of his sophomore season would have came earlier if he hadn’t sat out most of the previous summer with a broken foot. This situation just seems way too similar and a knee is a lot scarier.

I never really liked the old tagline.

CougCenter

by Craig Powers on Jul 8, 2009 3:44 PM PDT up reply actions

If it's the tear that it sounds like it is

He can start rehab almost immediately and will be back to normal activities within a couple of weeks with the exception of things that seriously pound the knee — things like weight lifting and running. As far as I can tell, there should be no issue working on post moves or learning how to catch passes.

CougCenter

by Jeff Nusser on Jul 8, 2009 4:53 PM PDT up reply actions

Injuries are such an integral part of sports....

Our football team suffered almost beyond imagination last season and now we’re talking about Lobster being 100% by fall practices. Hard to imagine. Broken necks, vertabrae, blown out knees and now this, one of our star basketball players.

Thank goodness for medical advancements because not too many years ago even the simplest of knee injuries was major surgery, at least in my day it was.

I just hope they don’t push it too fast with DeAngelo so that it doesn’t become a chronic problem. The body can heal only so fast.

by SW WA Coug on Jul 8, 2009 5:20 PM PDT up reply actions