ISU's MiKyle McIntosh undergoes surgery

[tornado]

But my source says he thinks Muller would rather try to rest him to hope he'll be OK for Saturday.

...Dan Muller said: "It will be up to him in a lot of ways."
https://twitter.com/Pg_Benson/status/826525390340575237

a couple things seem to stand out

-Muller "wouldn't say what Monday's MRI results were on McIntosh's sore right knee"
If the MRI was just fine, wouldn't he have said so? It would seem the only reason to hide something is if there's something that could in any way be "used" by the opponent to know McIntosh's weakness or limitation.
Kinda why hockey teams never reveal the specifics of injuries.

-they simply can NOT afford to play him if he's injured in any way and would be risking bigger, longer term problems (or a risk to McIntosh's future career) in a season where an NCAA bid is theirs to lose if they don't have McIntosh down the stretch and in the MVC Tourney

-"..during a news conference Tuesday afternoon before practice. (Muller said) "I don't know if he'll be able to play. He did not practice (Monday)."

so I think he won't start and probably won't play - but if Muller sees that a loss could be imminent and he judges he has to have McIntosh, then I think that option is still a possibility.

http://www.pantagraph.com/sports/col...ign=user-share

Well it would seem some of the prior reports on MiKyle McIntosh were a little bit deceptive.
I kinda think he's had this knee thing going on quite a while but is being pressured to play thru it.
Surely Dan Muller knew what yesterday's MRI showed and yet he hinted that MiKyle McIntosh could easily play today if he wanted to.

BUT THAT IS FALSE..

Here is the current news:

"Illinois State's MiKyle McIntosh underwent surgery today to repair a torn meniscus and is expected to miss three weeks, per a source."

https://twitter.com/JonRothstein/status/826955569424654338

Why were they pushing this kid to play when every time he did, he was doing more damage to seriously injured knee?Now they gotta hope he's well enough in just four weeks, or they could get bumped in round one of the MVC Tournament and be looking at an NIT bid.

[mvcfan]

You literally know nothing about this situation. Isnt there a speculation rule on this board?

[tornado]

can you cite what might be incorrect?
it's just quotes ...

He was previously said to be battling a nagging knee injury since before the season started,
so could they have underestimated the severity and missed the chance to have caught this earlier and gotten the surgery done & healed months ago?

Message boards are for just this type of talk on sports topics...
Maybe some of the people expressing opinions are orthopedic doctors or specialists?
If you want to withhold judgement out of lack of knowledge then feel free..but then don't judge for others..
If thinking and expressing opinions were banned on message boards then we'd probably be posting our fudge recipes...

[Da Coach]

Enlighten us.
Here is what has been reported-
He was said to have injured his knee in the second half of the January 21 game against Drake, 11 days ago. Yet he remained in the game, and played until the final buzzer. No starter played more minutes in the game than McIntosh. Rather odd considering he injured his knee.
Then despite the known knee injury, he practiced and played the following game against Indiana State on Jan. 25. He played 24 minutes and again was in the game until the final buzzer. Then he missed the Evansville game on Jan. 29, but he had been practicing leading up to that game, and he even dressed at Evansville and warmed up with the team intending to play, but then remained on the bench because of soreness in the knee. Then finally, on Monday, Jan. 30, 9 days after the injury, he underwent the MRI.
But as recently as yesterday (Tuesday's news conference), Muller implied he could play tonight, and said, "It will be up to him in a lot of ways."
So it does seem strange considering the injury was apparently known to be a torn meniscus by then. It also seems strange that it took 9 days for them to get an MRI, and he practiced and played for more than a week with the injury, right up until the day before the MRI.

[WSpringsBird]

Enlighten us.
Here is what has been reported-
He was said to have injured his knee in the second half of the January 21 game against Drake, 11 days ago. Yet he remained in the game, and played until the final buzzer. No starter played more minutes in the game than McIntosh. Rather odd considering he injured his knee.
Then despite the known knee injury, he practiced and played the following game against Indiana State on Jan. 25. He played 24 minutes and again was in the game until the final buzzer. Then he missed the Evansville game on Jan. 29, but he had been practicing leading up to that game, and he even dressed at Evansville and warmed up with the team intending to play, but then remained on the bench because of soreness in the knee. Then finally, on Monday, Jan. 30, 9 days after the injury, he underwent the MRI.
But as recently as yesterday (Tuesday's news conference), Muller implied he could play tonight, and said, "It will be up to him in a lot of ways."
So it does seem strange considering the injury was apparently known to be a torn meniscus by then. It also seems strange that it took 9 days for them to get an MRI, and he practiced and played for more than a week with the injury, right up until the day before the MRI.

I don't have any special information, but I have a torn meniscus right now, oddly enough, and can pretty easily explain the nine-day delay. In my case, I first went to the GP. He suspected structural damage and said he would like to order an MRI, but insurance won't pay or it unless you have an X-Ray first. You get the X-Ray, someone reads it and sees no problems, and the GP orders an MRI. You get an MRI, and it takes a day or two for someone to read it and write up a report. The GP reads it and sends you to an orthopedic surgeon. If you're just an overweight middle-aged guy like me who overexerted himself, it takes weeks to get that appointment. Obviously things move faster for a basketball player. But a nine-day delay is really lightning quick, at least based on my experience.

If your meniscus tear isn't bad, one course of treatment is rest, compression, icing, and physical therapy. A second course of action is surgery. A third, though unsustainable, course of action is doing what I've been doing the past few months, which is taking Nabumetone and going about my everyday activities.

Anyway, I know nothing about McIntosh's specific situation, but nothing that happened seemed out of the ordinary, at least based on my personal experience.

[Stickboy46]

I don't have any special information, but I have a torn meniscus right now, oddly enough, and can pretty easily explain the nine-day delay. In my case, I first went to the GP. He suspected structural damage and said he would like to order an MRI, but insurance won't pay or it unless you have an X-Ray first. You get the X-Ray, someone reads it and sees no problems, and the GP orders an MRI. You get an MRI, and it takes a day or two for someone to read it and write up a report. The GP reads it and sends you to an orthopedic surgeon. If you're just an overweight middle-aged guy like me who overexerted himself, it takes weeks to get that appointment. Obviously things move faster for a basketball player. But a nine-day delay is really lightning quick, at least based on my experience.

If your meniscus tear isn't bad, one course of treatment is rest, compression, icing, and physical therapy. A second course of action is surgery. A third, though unsustainable, course of action is doing what I've been doing the past few months, which is taking Nabumetone and going about my everyday activities.

Anyway, I know nothing about McIntosh's specific situation, but nothing that happened seemed out of the ordinary, at least based on my personal experience.

Same thing happened to McDuffie at the beginning of the year. He hurt it, then played on it a few games (in Canada) then had surgery before the start of the year. They said the doctors said he could rest it or have surgery. Either way could with. He was ready to play but took quite a while to feel comfortable on it.

[Da Coach]

I don't have any special information, but I have a torn meniscus right now, oddly enough, and can pretty easily explain the nine-day delay. In my case, I first went to the GP. He suspected structural damage and said he would like to order an MRI, but insurance won't pay or it unless you have an X-Ray first. You get the X-Ray, someone reads it and sees no problems, and the GP orders an MRI. You get an MRI, and it takes a day or two for someone to read it and write up a report. The GP reads it and sends you to an orthopedic surgeon. If you're just an overweight middle-aged guy like me who overexerted himself, it takes weeks to get that appointment. Obviously things move faster for a basketball player. But a nine-day delay is really lightning quick, at least based on my experience.

If your meniscus tear isn't bad, one course of treatment is rest, compression, icing, and physical therapy. A second course of action is surgery. A third, though unsustainable, course of action is doing what I've been doing the past few months, which is taking Nabumetone and going about my everyday activities.

Anyway, I know nothing about McIntosh's specific situation, but nothing that happened seemed out of the ordinary, at least based on my personal experience.

You cannot compare an injury in an ordinary patient with an injury in a high-level athlete who is playing or practicing every day. Yes, an ordinary individual can live with a meniscus tear indefinitely, and it can heal with long period of rest, as long as it is not reinjured. But any doctor would advise strict rest over that long period.
Because of my profession, I am quite familiar with the insurance requirements regarding expensive tests like MRI (they cost well over $3000). But it is different for injured D1 athletes. If an MRI is ordered for an athletic injury (and not knee pain in an older individual), it can be done immediately. And it doesn't take "a day or two" to get a reading. Because they are all recorded electronically in digital computer images and there is no longer developing or processing periods needed, a radiologist can read it immediately from anywhere, even from halfway around the world. In fact, when Emergency Rooms in the US get MRI scans or CAT scans on emergency patients in the middle of the night, they use radiologist groups in places like Australia to read them immediately, where they don't have to wait until the morning or wake someone up to get a reading. And interestingly, like everything else in medicine, the cost for these remote services is often lower than the cost locally. I guarantee they knew the results Monday, after the MRI was done.
And no team has to wait days or weeks for an orthopedic specialist appointment. I am sure that ISU, like Bradley and most D1 schools, have orthopedic specialists available to consult immediately. And like at Bradley, they are probably at every home game. It is why McIntosh was able to get surgery within hours after the MRI finally showed the meniscus tear. Ordinary patients would have waited weeks to have surgery.

But the biggest point is that if an internal knee injury was known or suspected, in order to get better, a doctor would have advised avoiding running, jumping, and athletic activities, because that is what can increase the tear and make the injury more severe. Yet, even a day after the MRI showed the torn meniscus, Muller was still implying McIntosh could play Wednesday, and said, "It will be up to him in a lot of ways." Then, the next day he had surgery

[WSpringsBird]

You cannot compare an injury in an ordinary patient with an injury in a high-level athlete who is playing or practicing every day. Yes, an ordinary individual can live with a meniscus tear indefinitely, and it can heal with long period of rest, as long as it is not reinjured. But any doctor would advise strict rest over that long period.
Because of my profession, I am quite familiar with the insurance requirements regarding expensive tests like MRI (they cost well over $3000). But it is different for injured D1 athletes. If an MRI is ordered for an athletic injury (and not knee pain in an older individual), it can be done immediately. And it doesn't take "a day or two" to get a reading. Because they are all recorded electronically in digital computer images and there is no longer developing or processing periods needed, a radiologist can read it immediately from anywhere, even from halfway around the world. In fact, when Emergency Rooms in the US get MRI scans or CAT scans on emergency patients in the middle of the night, they use radiologist groups in places like Australia to read them immediately, where they don't have to wait until the morning or wake someone up to get a reading. And interestingly, like everything else in medicine, the cost for these remote services is often lower than the cost locally. I guarantee they knew the results Monday, after the MRI was done.
And no team has to wait days or weeks for an orthopedic specialist appointment. I am sure that ISU, like Bradley and most D1 schools, have orthopedic specialists available to consult immediately. And like at Bradley, they are probably at every home game. It is why McIntosh was able to get surgery within hours after the MRI finally showed the meniscus tear. Ordinary patients would have waited weeks to have surgery.

But the biggest point is that if an internal knee injury was known or suspected, in order to get better, a doctor would have advised avoiding running, jumping, and athletic activities, because that is what can increase the tear and make the injury more severe. Yet, even a day after the MRI showed the torn meniscus, Muller was still implying McIntosh could play Wednesday, and said, "It will be up to him in a lot of ways." Then, the next day he had surgery

My point was not that my situation and McIntosh's were exactly the same. If you saw us side-by-side, you would notice some, um, slight differences in our physiques. I was just pointing out that the period between injury and treatment was much shorter than it was for a guy on the street. (I know you acknowledge that.) My point was also that some meniscus tears are more serious than others, and treatment protocols will differ, with the patient making the final call. As Stickboy pointed out, Markis McDuffie has played the entire year with a meniscus injury. It sounds like it was up to him whether he played this year or immediately underwent surgery.

http://www.kansas.com/sports/college/wichita-state/article93305367.html

[tornado]

even the most amateur sports fan knows that knee injuries are sometimes tricky and sometimes disastrous..
Ever since Gale Sayers, it's widely known by any doctor and any trainer that you DON'T make the mistake of misjudging a knee injury because...
it can go from minor to bad to worse in a hurry if you keep playing on it..

They knew at least as far back as a couple weeks ago that he had a knee injury and possibly as far back as last fall...
now he has surgery just 4 weeks before the uber-important season-end tournament...
Draw whatever conclusion you want but it is working out about as bad as it could possibly work out fo ISU and MiKyle.....
I know it's hard to say anyone else could have done better but playing on a known knee injury and then trying to play him again - then doing an MRI and heading right to surgery - looks suspiciously like the injury was misjudged.

[WSpringsBird]

even the most amateur sports fan knows that knee injuries are sometimes tricky and sometimes disastrous..
Ever since Gale Sayers, it's widely known by any doctor and any trainer that you DON'T make the mistake of misjudging a knee injury because...
it can go from minor to bad to worse in a hurry if you keep playing on it..

They knew at least as far back as a couple weeks ago that he had a knee injury and possibly as far back as last fall...
now he has surgery just 4 weeks before the uber-important season-end tournament...
Draw whatever conclusion you want but it is working out about as bad as it could possibly work out fo ISU and MiKyle.....
I know it's hard to say anyone else could have done better but playing on a known knee injury and then trying to play him again - then doing an MRI and heading right to surgery - looks suspiciously like the injury was misjudged.

That is quite possibly the case. And yes, in my view, this will negate any possibility we had of gaining an at-large bid, so it is a tough situation. That said, for his sake I am glad he had the surgery instead of playing through it.

[tornado]

talking "average return time" is fine & dandy but I hope they do NOT make the mistake of trying to rush the kid back too quickly ...
and make the mistake of letting statistics guide you rather than looking at the patient as an individual.

https://twitter.com/Pg_Benson/status/827012121108086785

but ask Donte Thomas who tore a meniscus cartilage and had surgery, missed the entire rest of his high school senior season and the whole spring & summer, and was not playing at his full abilities for nearly a year. Now he's 100% and has never been troubled with re-injury since.

http://www.bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=289764&highlight=donte+thomas#post289764

one other high profile case was Derrick Rose....and I concede no two cases are exactly alike....
but Rose came back from meniscus surgery then re-injured himself & had to go back for another surgery.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2379618-derrick-rose-takes-calculated-risk-with-quick-return-from-meniscus-tear

The kid's got a great potential for a long pro career - I wish him a speedy recovery and great success.

[Stickboy46]

As Stickboy pointed out, Markis McDuffie has played the entire year with a meniscus injury. It sounds like it was up to him whether he played this year or immediately underwent surgery.

http://www.kansas.com/sports/college...e93305367.html

He did not play an entire year with it. He injured it over the summer. Played a couple of games in the Canada exhibition, then decided to have surgery before the season. He was back in the lineup for the start of the season, but it took a couple of months for him to really feel comfortable with it.

But yes, from my understanding he was given the option to have surgery or not.

[Stickboy46]

talking "average return time" is fine & dandy but I hope they do NOT make the mistake of trying to rush the kid back too quickly ...
and make the mistake of letting statistics guide you rather than looking at the patient as an individual.

https://twitter.com/Pg_Benson/status/827012121108086785

but ask Donte Thomas who tore a meniscus cartilage and had surgery, missed the entire rest of his high school senior season and the whole spring & summer, and was not playing at his full abilities for nearly a year. Now he's 100% and has never been troubled with re-injury since.

http://www.bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=289764&highlight=donte+thomas#post289764

one other high profile case was Derrick Rose....and I concede no two cases are exactly alike....
but Rose came back from meniscus surgery then re-injured himself & had to go back for another surgery.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2379618-derrick-rose-takes-calculated-risk-with-quick-return-from-meniscus-tear

The kid's got a great potential for a long pro career - I wish him a speedy recovery and great success.

There are so many factors with these things. Shamet last year was slated to return at the beginning of February from his foot surgery. After that time arrived, his foot was fine, but his ankle was so tight from the restrictions set after the surgery, that he could not perform at the level he wanted to, so he ended up taking a medical redshirt.

While the Meniscus has a much easy recovery time, other things can still come up.