Johnson's injury not as severe as first feared

By MARTY MISHOW ~ Southeast Missourian

The Southeast Missouri State men's basketball team has dodged a major bullet.

Junior forward Nino Johnson, one of the squad's key players, was feared to have suffered a torn ACL during a pickup game with teammates over the weekend.

Southeast coach Dickey Nutt, in fact, said that as of Monday he was already planning on Johnson missing the entire 2013-14 season.

But the Redhawks' outlook totally changed Tuesday afternoon when results of an MRI taken earlier that day revealed only a bone bruise and not a torn ACL.

"At 3 p.m. Monday the doctors were about 90 percent sure it was an ACL tear," Nutt said Tuesday. "Nino was down and out. Everybody was obviously disappointed. ... We felt so sorry for him, not to mention our team.

"But he had an MRI done this morning. About 1 p.m., I got a phone call. ... It was probably the best phone call I've received in all my years of coaching. I rushed over to the dorm to give him the great news."

Added Nutt: "It was a great afternoon for Nino and our program, having some prayers answered. It puts things in perspective. I visited him this afternoon, he was just shaking his head, he couldn't believe it. Yesterday it was the other way."

Nutt said Johnson would have likely missed about three or four weeks if this had happened during practice or the season. But with Southeast wrapping up its summer workouts and taking a break before the school year begins, Johnson basically won't miss any type of team activity.

"He'll have to rehab for a while, then he'll be up to speed," Nutt said. "Everybody is happy. ... We've had a very, very good summer, and we've got a close-knit team."

The 6-foot-8, 230-pound Johnson averaged 11.1 points and a team-high 8.8 rebounds while shooting a team-high 56.6 percent from the field as a sophomore last year.

Johnson set a school single-season record with 84 blocked shots. He was second in the Ohio Valley Conference in both rebounding and blocks.