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A blog on UConn women's basketball.

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Mosqueda-Lewis, Tuck sidelined for UConn

All things considered things could have been worse, significantly worse.

The sight of seeing All-American forward Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis screaming out in pain after striking her elbow hard on the court early in the second half of Monday's win over Stanford and it would have been a surprise to absolutely nobody if UConn announced on Wednesday that she was going to miss the rest of the season.

However, test results showed no broken bones and just a nerve contusion in her elbow. She will be out indefinitely and will have the elbow reexamined next week assuming the swelling goes down enough to get a better look at it.

“I am really happy that nothing too major happened,” Mosqueda-Lewis said, “It is just a contusion, it will heal with a little bit of rehab.  just want to know when I am going to be able to get out there with my team and help them out.

“They (UConn’s medical staff) haven’t given me any idea (how long she will be sidelined). They just told me I have to take it day by day.”

The news wasn't all good.

Sophomore forward Morgan Tuck, who would have been the likely choice to replace her in the starting lineup, said she knew she would be undergoing surgery to fix loose cartilage in her right knee even she had 11 points in 18 minutes in Monday’s win over Stanford. She underwent the surgery on Tuesday morning and is expected to be out at least a month.

“It didn’t really bother me while I was playing, it was the after and the before,” Tuck said. “I went all summer, all preseason and after maybe five or six practices was when it started to swell up.

“There was a little bit (of pain) and that is why they put me in a brace,. Obviously that wasn’t (working) because I had to get the scope.”

In a perfect world UConn would stagger the time that the two forwards would be out of action as Tuck could have helped to fill the void while Mosqueda-Lewis was sidelined. However, the goal was to have both of them as close to 100 percent as possible come NCAA tournament time.

“I knew I was going to be out before Kaleena got hurt so it wasn’t a shocker that I wasn’t going to be able to play,” Tuck said. “I wish I could be out there helping my team, I don’t know who wouldn’t want to but with the injury I still think I am going to be pretty good.”

Mosqueda-Lewis is thrilled to say that she is going to be fine as well.

“I had about 56 texts after the game, people asking if I was OK, if everything was all right, how I felt,” Mosqueda-Lewis said. “I called people back, texted people back and said I will be fine, I will be back before the season is over so no one needs to worry any more.

“It was good news. Rosie (Ragle, UConn’s athletic trainer) told me nothing was broke, it is just a nerve contusion and you will be back and I was really relieved. I think it (not playing) is going to test my patience.”

UConn will head on this weekend’s road trip against Maryland and Penn State with just seven healthy scholarship players and that includes Brianna Banks, who is still working her way back into the rotation after recovering from a torn ACL suffered during her sophomore season. It could have been a lot worse as the Huskies could face the remainder of their season with just seven scholarship players.

"There are lots of good signs," Auriemma said. "If you want to take the positive view of this, if Kaleena's arm doesn't bend when she hits than who knows what would happen? Doc (Robert Arciero) would have gone in and found a lot of really bad stuff in Morgan's knee, who knows what is going to happen. We could have potentially lost both of these guys for the year."

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1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nerve pain, pins-n-needles, tingling, and numbness can last a lifetime. There is no predicting how long it will last or if it will return. Because my right arm became almost useless, I had the Ulnar, Radial, and Medial Nerve Branches all moved. 1 surgery, 3 incisions. While my functionality vastly improved, I still get debilitating nerve pain. Hope that KML will not suffer from occassional symptoms for years like some do.

8:08 PM 

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