Opinion: Kentucky Wildcats star point guard Cason Wallace went down with around 18:30 left in the second half on Wednesday night. The Wildcats struggled without him and lost the game by two, 68-66.
After the game, in his press conference, Coach Cal had this to say about Cason’s situation:
“First of all, Cason, they X-rayed, he’s fine,” Calipari said. “It’s not swollen. We’ll see. I’m hoping he’ll be okay for Saturday but I don’t know. And if not, we’ve got to figure out how we do it against pressure.”
If Wallace going out in the second half didn’t hurt enough, Sahvir Wheeler wasn’t even available. Media has been circling around this story for a couple days now and something doesn’t sound right with what is being told. Apparently, he had a “minor surgery” and that kept him out of the game and also away from the Senior Night festivities. Strange set of events and BBN is full of speculation on this one. On the Wheeler situation, Cal was reported as saying “it’s going to be a couple of weeks”.
But What Does Casons’ Injury Even Mean?
I’m a 4th year medical student at the University of Pikeville – Kentucky College of Osteopathic Medicine and also a sports fan. Here is what I think happened.
In close up replay, it is clear that when making an aggressive push to the basket, Wallace attempted to stop abruptly. When his left foot came down to make contact with the court, it lost stability and his foot twisted inward almost to a 90 degree perpendicular angle. Based on my interpretation of the film, it is clear that Wallace sustained a left ankle injury of some kind. When we talk about left ankle injuries a few thoughts come to mind. Did he sprain his ankle? Did he break his ankle? Did he tear ligaments? Injure tendons?
In order to conformably answer these questions medical providers employ the classic “Ottawa Ankle Rules” (click here to learn more about that) to determine if an x-ray is warranted and where an x-ray should be taken. The rules essentially look for pinpoint pain in an area of the foot or ankle as well as the inability to bear weight.
If there is no pain and a patient can bear weight, then no x-ray is indicated and we would say they have a light ankle sprain of some kind, AKA some ligaments or tendons were stretched but not torn. It seems Wallace had some pinpoint pain and had trouble bearing full weight, meaning an x-ray was taken to look for broken or fractured bones and evidence of tore ligaments/tendons.
Based on the update provided by the coach, no severe injury was seen on the x-ray. Now although we cannot rule out moderate-severe injury, at this time we can exclude severe injury and we can hope as fans that Wallace will be on the court Saturday.
My guess is that he sprained his ankle and stretched some of his lateral ankle ligaments/tendons (these can be bad enough to take weeks to heal), but IF Wallace has no swelling (which indicates more severe
injury like a partial tear) and can bear weight adequately then it is likely he only has a slight sprain and will be on the court Saturday.
The Kentucky Wildcats return to action on Saturday to close out the season agains the Arkansas Razorbacks. Game time is 2pm EST on CBS.
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