Missouri State's Alize Johnson knee injury

[Da Coach]

So far, all the MVC previews pick Missouri State's Alize Johnson as the Preseason Player of the Year, and when the MVC coaches and media poll comes out, he will also be the official preseason POY.

But today, MSU Head Coach Paul Lusk revealed that Johnson injured his knee. So far, he is saying it isn't too serious.

This tweet is from the former Springfield News-Leader beat writer for Missouri State, Jim Connell, who is now an independent sports reporter-

https://twitter.com/Jim_Connell_417/status/920660407689404416

Just yesterday, The Springfield News-Leader had this preview of the Missouri State Bears team-

http://www.news-leader.com/story/sports/college/msu/2017/10/17/needs-year-expectations-high-bears-basketballd/747642001/

And another piece of bad news for Missouri State- highly regarded recruit Greg Williams, who missed all last season with multiple serious medical issues, was expected to be healthy and play a big part for the team this season. However, he has not recovered from hernia surgery as expected, and may not be able to play this season.

http://www.news-leader.com/story/sports/college/msu/2017/10/18/highly-rated-msu-basketball-player-likely-miss-another-season/775995001/

[tornado]

...Alize Johnson ... injured his knee.
Greg Williams...has not recovered from hernia surgery as expected, and may not be able to play this season....

wow- a couple huge hits - good thing they didn't offer that money-back guarantee on tickets this year

I hope they don't make the mistake of rushing him back from a knee injury too soon as happened at ISU with Bobby Hill and at Creighton with Josh Dotzler and elsewhere *

Experts commonly say "any knee injury can be serious" or can be "more serious" than initially suspected..
Alize Johnson has an NBA career ahead of him and will bring a ton of coverage to the Valley so hopefully he can stay healthy!

http://www.oamichigan.com/stay-game-need-know-knee-injuries/

https://www.dukehealth.org/treatments/orthopaedics/knee-pain-and-knee-injuries

btw- it is described elsewhere as being an MCL sprain and it happened 2 1/2 weeks ago..


as for Williams - as I recall (check back on our past discussions) they were promising he'd be ready to start last year then pushed that back a few weeks but in the end, they completely underestimated the severity of Williams' illness and he had to go back for multiple additional surgeries due reportedly to life-threatening infections that arose as a consequence of his prior surgeries... LINK - LINK

some prior articles said that when he had a ruptured appendix, he then developed a "life-threatening" infection with "flesh-eating bacteria" that damaged or destroyed the health of some of his abdominal wall and then the tissue kept breaking down & needing repeated repair procedures (hernias developed). According to the latest article, now it is happening again and he is likely to miss this upcoming season.
...and that was all starting to happen as far back as two and a half years ago and that last round of surgery was in June thru September of 2016 and again an extensive hospitalization at the end of last season, so if he's still struggling with those same problems a year and a half to two years later it's really tragic for Williams...
The year before that he had a serious Achilles injury that caused all his bigger offers (Florida State, Virginia Tech, etc..) to drop off so he really hasn't played much ball since he was a sophomore in HS 3-4 years ago