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The Rice Thresher
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by Ryan Keedy thresher staff Just when junior center T.J. McKenzie was playing the best basketball of his career, his season abruptly ended Jan. 25 when a second-half injury against the University of Hawaii sent him to the sidelines for at least a couple of months. The Owls held on to win the televised home game against Western Athletic Conference foe University of Hawaii, but the price they paid may have been too high. "I was running down the court for a fast break and [senior guard] Mike Wilks tossed the ball up," McKenzie said. "I went up to grab the ball, and as I came down, my foot was planted and I had a Hawaii player run into me. My knee just gave out, and that's when I went down. I thought my knee was hurt. My first thought was not an ACL. I thought it was a sprain or something. I didn't know why my knee wouldn't straighten, but I wasn't thinking ACL or anything." McKenzie was averaging 6.1 points and 6.4 rebounds per game, but he had stepped up his play considerably during the course of the season. In five of Rice's last seven games, McKenzie posted double digits in scoring or rebounding. All that replays of the incident could show was an unnatural bending of the knee. "The doctor told me that I have what's called a bone avulsion," McKenzie said. "What happened is my ACL pulled a chunk of bone out from my fibula, and they don't think the ACL's torn. I have surgery [today] and they'll pin the bone back down. I should recover 100 percent in a month and a half, maybe two months. "They said it's pretty rare. Our trainer even said that he hasn't seen it for 15 years or so." By the end of the same game, two of Rice's three remaining big men had fouled out. Now, it's back to the drawing board for the Owls for an inside game that was finally beginning to take shape due to McKenzie's improved play. "It's a concern in the post," head coach Willis Wilson said. "We do have some depth because of guys like [senior forward] Erik Cooper and [freshman forward] Christian Kollik who are able to play in the post some. When you lose T.J., you also lose a big body. He takes up space and he can create possessions for his team by rebounding and blocking occasional shots and those kinds of things, and that's where we really miss T.J. "If a guy can create five possessions, that's five opportunities to shoot the ball, and if you can come up with three out of those five where you can score, that's a potential anywhere from six points to 12 points." The Owls have lost two of their original five starters this season. Sophomore point guard Omar-Seli Mance is already out for the season with stress fractures in both feet. "Obviously missing Omar and missing T.J. out of the lineup makes a big difference to our team," Wilson said. "It affects our rotation, it affects a lot of guys' minutes, it affects our timing and our rhythm, and [timing] certainly has to do with our shot selection. I think it's something that's going to take a little time, but we have good enough shooters that we should be able to overcome a lot of those things." The team is already feeling the effects of McKenzie's absence. In Saturday's loss to San Jose State University, the Owls could not muster any semblance of an offense in the first half and struggled to a season-low 14 points for the half. "[His absence] definitely had an impact on the team," Cooper said. "Even if it wasn't so much scoring, it was just to know you didn't have that big body in the middle to fill things up defensively and offensively. He's been a starter all year long, so it kind of hurt the cohesion of the team a little bit." A disappointed McKenzie has resolved to come back next season. "The doctor said the season's over," McKenzie said. "Basically, I have surgery [today] and probably won't be able to walk for a week or more maybe. I just have to start a regimen of knee therapy, and then from there, I'm not sure. I'm going to work real hard and I'll be back by next season real strong."
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