OSU basketball injury, LeBryan Nash and schedule update
Published: 3/29/2011 8:20 PM
Last Modified: 3/29/2011 8:20 PM
Oklahoma State coach Travis Ford met for about 45 minutes Tuesday with reporters who cover the Cowboy basketball beat.
It was Ford’s annual season-ending state of the union press conference. He was asked about last season, incoming McDonald’s All-American LeBryan Nash, attendance, style of play, scheduling, returning players who could make an impact --- and an injury that hasn’t been talked about much, at least publicly.
The injured person? Ford.
The third-year Cowboy coach is on the verge of needing a hip replacement, but he’s not ready to take the plunge.
Ford said he has been in pain for “maybe a year and a half.” He’s a runner and he said the hip didn’t give him problems once he loosened up and started running. But, after running, he paid the price.
“It was getting to a point where it was really bothering me and I couldn’t sleep and I couldn’t walk,” he said.
Ford stopped running for almost two months this season in hopes that rest would allow him to heal. And he felt good -- until he ran for three-and-a-half or four miles Monday.
“I’m in bad shape,” he said.
Asked if he will have a replacement procecure, Ford said he might “go the injection route” to get some relief for a year or two.
Subject change alert: In February, Ford vowed to make changes at season’s end and he talked about those changes for a story that will appear in Wednesday editions of the Tulsa World.
Here are a few other highlights from Tuesday’s interview session:
--Ford said OSU will play “the best home schedule ever in the history of Oklahoma State basketball” next season. And he said that’s true just because of a round-robin conference schedule that will bring all nine Big 12 opponents to Stillwater.
Ford volunteered that after being asked about the nonconference schedule. Barring changes, OSU will play in the preseason NIT and the All-College Classic. The Cowboys will go to Birmingham, Ala., to face Alabama and Springfield, Mo., to face Missouri State. And they’ll play Tulsa at home.
“We are not looking to go easy,” he said. “I know some people say, well, everybody is talking about going easy in the nonconference because of the conference schedule. Somebody wrote an article about it. We are not doing that by any means. That is not happening. I promise you that. If anything, we are probably going a little bit extreme once it’s all said and done, but we still have three games to (schedule) here.”
--Asked if forward Darrell Williams will rejoin the team if cleared of charges related to improperly touching females without permission, Ford said, “We’re just letting the process take its course at this point.”
--Ford said he does not expect Nash, who won the McDonald’s All-America slam dunk contest Monday night, to be at OSU four four seasons.
How long will Nash be a Cowboy? It’s hard to say.
As of now, Ford said Nash is a candidate to be a one-and-done player because he’s among the nation’s highest-rated prospects.
“But we don’t know how his freshman year is going to go and things like that,” Ford said.
“The trend is, a lot of these guys are staying. You look at (Ohio State’s Jared) Sullinger who is saying he’s staying. A lot of these guys could say they are leaving. But this possible lockout could affect a couple of the next classes. If a lot of these guys stay now, the following year, (will that affect where Nash is projected to be drafted)? We’ll see.”
Ford said he hopes Nash and the Cowboys do well enough that Nash has the option of being a one-and-done player.
“But maybe he’s back for another year, even like a James Anderson, who could have left after his sophomore year and said, hey, I might need one more year even though... he would have been a top 25 pick after his sophomore year.... We’ll just see.”
--Jimmie Tramel.
Written by
Jimmie Tramel
Sports Writer
