UConn's Mamadou Diarra underwent surgery Monday to repair a torn meniscus... | Page 3 | The Boneyard

UConn's Mamadou Diarra underwent surgery Monday to repair a torn meniscus...

the Q said:
The doc who has done all 3 of my meniscus tears also said that once you have it in one leg, you are likely to have the issue in the other leg in the next 7-9 years.

Mine was year 8...
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That’s bad news for me possibly although it has been a long time since the original injury (happened while playing basketball at UConn no less) and my other knee is fine.
 
Our front court will still be fine barring any more injuries, we just need guys like sid and polley to step up more in the weight room and add more physicality to their game
 
Where was it done. Hope they learned from the AG experience and retured to Steadman Hawkins at Vail
 
Peacefrog said:
That’s bad news for me possibly although it has been a long time since the original injury (happened while playing basketball at UConn no less) and my other knee is fine.
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I'm its not perfect.

I had a double tear in my left knee that cost me my senior year of college baseball.

Then had the right one done 20 years later after tore it moving about as slow as possible (after a made basket with no press.....so slow lol) at an AAU game.

I hope you avoid the other side. It was a lot harder the 2nd time.
 
We open November 8th in the 2K Classic.

Best case, he is practicing with the team as we begin play. If it's six months, we don't see him until the back half of the schedule.

It's not ideal. We'll see how it plays out.
 
Palatine said:
We open November 8th in the 2K Classic.

Best case, he is practicing with the team as we begin play. If it's six months, we don't see him until the back half of the schedule.

It's not ideal. We'll see how it plays out.
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I'd wager they won't rush him back. No need.
 
Hope he has a speedy and successful recovery. I feel bad for the kid and also for the program.
 
There are 2 main things that determine if a meniscus can be repaired: its location and the tear pattern. Peripheral tears of menisci have a better blood supply and therefore have the capacity to heal if sewn back together. Central tears do not and therefore need to be excised so they no longer cause you pain and mechanical symptoms. Blood supply matters because the tear needs to organically heal. Even the most robust repair will fail over time if the body does not heal causing the suture to break.

The tear pattern is also important. Imagine a simple tear in cloth--very easy to sew together. Now, imagine if there were multiple components of the tear with irregular edges--much harder. These components are all considered during the arthroscopy to determine if you are a candidate for repair.

Sounds like he had a tear amendable to a repair which is great for him in the long run. Maintaining your meniscus decreases the rate of developing osteoarthritis over time. The repair takes time to heal so you do not do any advanced physical therapy until about 6 weeks. Compare this to a meniscectomy (excision) where you can start aggressive PT immediately and it explains some of the difference in recovery time. The 4-6 month range is reasonable return to division 1 athletics.

Quick side note--not all meniscus tears need surgery. If you put 100 people without any knee pain over the age of 40 into a MRI scanner, approximately 40% would have a incidental tear of their meniscus. The meniscus degenerates over time any many times does not require surgery.

Also, there is no correlation that having a meniscus tear in one knee makes you prone to developing another one in your other knee. ACL tears on the other hand...different story.

Hope he has a quick and uneventful recovery!
 
Cuse Socks said:
Our front court will still be fine barring any more injuries, we just need guys like sid and polley to step up more in the weight room and add more physicality to their game
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I guess it depends what you mean by "fine." The coaching change should do wonders for everybody, but the front court is still kind of...bad? I don't say that to denigrate any of the players as much as I do to remain realistic about what they're going to give us at this stage in their development. Carlon had a decent freshman year relative to where he was ranked, but most kids in his mold aren't real factors until year three. We don't know if Sid is going to give us anything at the four or if he'll even play at all there given his stature. Even if he does, it'll be his first time playing college ball. Kwintin and Yakwe are complete flyers. Cobb gave us nothing last year, and even if he has transformed his body, he's logged less than 300 total minutes of D-1 action.

At this point there is nothing at the four or five that has proven to be better than replacement level. Diarra is a top 150 kid entering his third year with the program who I looked at as the most ready to elevate his game. His profile is strikingly similar to Hassan Martin, who made a big jump in his second season under Hurley and developed into an all-conference caliber player.

All hope is not lost since it looks like he should be able to return at some point, but to me there was something distinctly promising about Diarra compared to our other front court prospects. Long, explosive, rangy...pretty much everything you want in a college big man (he does need to bulk up). Losing him for an extended period of time is a huge blow.
 
Giddyup5 said:
There are 2 main things that determine if a meniscus can be repaired: its location and the tear pattern. Peripheral tears of menisci have a better blood supply and therefore have the capacity to heal if sewn back together. Central tears do not and therefore need to be excised so they no longer cause you pain and mechanical symptoms. Blood supply matters because the tear needs to organically heal. Even the most robust repair will fail over time if the body does not heal causing the suture to break.

The tear pattern is also important. Imagine a simple tear in cloth--very easy to sew together. Now, imagine if there were multiple components of the tear with irregular edges--much harder. These components are all considered during the arthroscopy to determine if you are a candidate for repair.

Sounds like he had a tear amendable to a repair which is great for him in the long run. Maintaining your meniscus decreases the rate of developing osteoarthritis over time. The repair takes time to heal so you do not do any advanced physical therapy until about 6 weeks. Compare this to a meniscectomy (excision) where you can start aggressive PT immediately and it explains some of the difference in recovery time. The 4-6 month range is reasonable return to division 1 athletics.

Quick side note--not all meniscus tears need surgery. If you put 100 people without any knee pain over the age of 40 into a MRI scanner, approximately 40% would have a incidental tear of their meniscus. The meniscus degenerates over time any many times does not require surgery.

Also, there is no correlation that having a meniscus tear in one knee makes you prone to developing another one in your other knee. ACL tears on the other hand...different story.

Hope he has a quick and uneventful recovery!
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I have a partial tear right now, if it tore in another direction it would've been another complete tear. It's a weird cut, so the only way for them to fix it would be to cut it completely and then repair it.

I told them I'm clearly capable of tearing it on my own.
 
champs99and04 said:
I guess it depends what you mean by "fine." The coaching change should do wonders for everybody, but the front court is still kind of...bad? I don't say that to denigrate any of the players as much as I do to remain realistic about what they're going to give us at this stage in their development. Carlon had a decent freshman year relative to where he was ranked, but most kids in his mold aren't real factors until year three. We don't know if Sid is going to give us anything at the four or if he'll even play at all there given his stature. Even if he does, it'll be his first time playing college ball. Kwintin and Yakwe are complete flyers. Cobb gave us nothing last year, and even if he has transformed his body, he's logged less than 300 total minutes of D-1 action.

At this point there is nothing at the four or five that has proven to be better than replacement level. Diarra is a top 150 kid entering his third year with the program who I looked at as the most ready to elevate his game. His profile is strikingly similar to Hassan Martin, who made a big jump in his second season under Hurley and developed into an all-conference caliber player.

All hope is not lost since it looks like he should be able to return at some point, but to me there was something distinctly promising about Diarra compared to our other front court prospects. Long, explosive, rangy...pretty much everything you want in a college big man (he does need to bulk up). Losing him for an extended period of time is a huge blow.
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I agree. However I think the biggest facet Diarra brought to the team was toughness and physicality. Both of which can be replaced if others step up to the responsibility. I think he has the potential to be the most skilled of our frontcourt because he was a higher rated recruit but he hasn't shown any offensive skills that can't be replaced. He's also mad undersized, in person he looks like 6'6 so it's not like we're losing anyone too physically imposing. But yes, big blow for now. Can't afford more injuries
 
champs99and04 said:
I guess it depends what you mean by "fine." The coaching change should do wonders for everybody, but the front court is still kind of...bad? I don't say that to denigrate any of the players as much as I do to remain realistic about what they're going to give us at this stage in their development. Carlon had a decent freshman year relative to where he was ranked, but most kids in his mold aren't real factors until year three. We don't know if Sid is going to give us anything at the four or if he'll even play at all there given his stature. Even if he does, it'll be his first time playing college ball. Kwintin and Yakwe are complete flyers. Cobb gave us nothing last year, and even if he has transformed his body, he's logged less than 300 total minutes of D-1 action.

At this point there is nothing at the four or five that has proven to be better than replacement level. Diarra is a top 150 kid entering his third year with the program who I looked at as the most ready to elevate his game. His profile is strikingly similar to Hassan Martin, who made a big jump in his second season under Hurley and developed into an all-conference caliber player.

All hope is not lost since it looks like he should be able to return at some point, but to me there was something distinctly promising about Diarra compared to our other front court prospects. Long, explosive, rangy...pretty much everything you want in a college big man (he does need to bulk up). Losing him for an extended period of time is a huge blow.
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I'd call Yakwe more than a flyer. He's a guaranteed defensive presence, which we need. Offensively, yeah, he's flyer. But Diarra wasn't giving us much there anyway.

I thought Diarra was going to be one of the big surprises this year. Shame to hear.
 
champs99and04 said:
I guess it depends what you mean by "fine." The coaching change should do wonders for everybody, but the front court is still kind of...bad? I don't say that to denigrate any of the players as much as I do to remain realistic about what they're going to give us at this stage in their development. Carlon had a decent freshman year relative to where he was ranked, but most kids in his mold aren't real factors until year three. We don't know if Sid is going to give us anything at the four or if he'll even play at all there given his stature. Even if he does, it'll be his first time playing college ball. Kwintin and Yakwe are complete flyers. Cobb gave us nothing last year, and even if he has transformed his body, he's logged less than 300 total minutes of D-1 action.

At this point there is nothing at the four or five that has proven to be better than replacement level. Diarra is a top 150 kid entering his third year with the program who I looked at as the most ready to elevate his game. His profile is strikingly similar to Hassan Martin, who made a big jump in his second season under Hurley and developed into an all-conference caliber player.

All hope is not lost since it looks like he should be able to return at some point, but to me there was something distinctly promising about Diarra compared to our other front court prospects. Long, explosive, rangy...pretty much everything you want in a college big man (he does need to bulk up). Losing him for an extended period of time is a huge blow.
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If you are a believer in BPM, Whaley is a borderline startable player for a good team, and absolutely should be starting for this team.

Yakwe/Carlton is interesting, but Yakwe was just so bad offensively, it's amazing. I haven't seen many OBPMs that poor. He was DO level bad.
 
Hope Diarra makes a quick and complete recovery!

There's Cobb and Yakwe but to me, this puts more focus on the development of Isaiah Whaley. I know his PT waned down the stretch last season, but between 12/9 and 1/28, Whaley posted averages of 5.1 pts, 4 boards, 1.8 blocks in those 12 games. We all know Hurley preaches defensive intensity and Whaley provides that.
 
Hey Adrien! said:
Hope Diarra makes a quick and complete recovery!

There's Cobb and Yakwe but to me, this puts more focus on the development of Isaiah Whaley. I know his PT waned down the stretch last season, but between 12/9 and 1/28, Whaley posted averages of 5.1 pts, 4 boards, 1.8 blocks in those 12 games. We all know Hurley preaches defensive intensity and Whaley provides that.
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for all the things that this board gets excited about...I don't get why Whaley's defense is not one of them.
 
If Yakwe can rebound and make the outlet pass, he's an upgrade.
 
the Q said:
for all the things that this board gets excited about...I don't get why Whaley's defense is not one of them.
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Size is a big part of it. Lack of any offensive skill. Overall clueless when it comes to how the game is played. Those probably feature prominently.

I like the kid, but don't think he'll reach effectiveness until jr year at the earliest.
 
the Q said:
for all the things that this board gets excited about...I don't get why Whaley's defense is not one of them.
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Two reasons really. While he blocked shots very effectively, with good timing, any player with bulk could back him down effortlessly. He's a toothpick. He can't hold ground against any traditional big, even if he can guard somebody like say Polley, playing at the 4. Secondarily, his offense was beyond awful. Really bad. There was no need to even guard him.

I hope he (a) bulks up and (b) adds at least some basic offense, so that he can contribute. I think it's far more likely the Cobb and Yawke are able to do that this season. Diarra, I thought, gave you less shot blocking, but the ability to hold off a defender, much better offense and much, much better rebounding, along with better speed and finishing on the break. I really expected Diarra to thrive in a running, pressure defense environment.
 
Better he gets it fixed now over mid-season. Diarra will be a good piece for this team in the future.. Its not that big of a hit people are making it out to be..It is not like we just lost Carl Malone at the 4.

This allows Whaley and a few others room to grow.. I have a lot of faith in Whaley in his jr and sr years.. We are now going to have more time to invest in him.
 
One of Isaiah's developing strengths is a seemingly natural ability of crashing the offensive glass, by getting through the seams and timing his leaping near perfectly. Love this skill, not too many players have it. For the same reason he will also be effective on defense, being mobile and also getting some clean blocks and altering shots. He is 6'8, 6'9, long with good hops, athleticism, and a great motor. I expect Isaiah will have progressed quite a bit from his freshman to sophomore year and will log some serious minutes this year with or without Mamadou being available.

We will miss Mamadou, reminds me some of Jeff Adrien with his toughness, long arms and physicality inside, and I hope he has a complete and speedy recovery.
 
Last edited:
Palatine said:
We open November 8th in the 2K Classic.

Best case, he is practicing with the team as we begin play. If it's six months, we don't see him until the back half of the schedule.

It's not ideal. We'll see how it plays out.
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The problem is the 4-6 months of lost development. He is still too raw to play major minutes of high major ball. I don’t see him being a factor at all this year.
 
WingU-Conn said:
4-6 MONTHS??? For a meniscus? I thought 4-6 weeks was more likely than months, but i'm no ortho.

That really sucks for the kid, hoping he's back by winter break.
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Yeah that seems a bit much. I mean i can see being in a brace and/or crutches for about 6 weeks but 4-6 months seems a lot but i guess its because he plays basketball?
 

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