UC IRVINE NOTEBOOK : Lizarraga’s Knee Injury Could Be the End of Her College Career
When Kathy Lizarraga went down with a knee injury during UC Irvine’s game Saturday against UC Santa Barbara, Coach Colleen Matsuhara asked her a question whose answer she dreaded.
“Did you hear a pop?”
Lizarraga answered in the affirmative.
“She definitely did,” Matsuhara said. “In all my years in coaching, that’s always meant the same thing.”
A torn ligament, and more specifically, the one whose name can make an athlete cringe--the anterior cruciate.
Danny Manning, Ron Harper, Bernard King, Ed O’Bannon. They’re great company on a basketball court, but no one envies the road of surgery and rehabilitation they all faced.
Lizarraga, a senior guard who is Irvine’s leading scorer, won’t know anything for sure until she receives the results of a magnetic resonance imaging test, but doctors suspect a tear in the anterior cruciate, and the prospects of her returning to the court for Irvine are not encouraging.
Rehabilitation after surgery to repair the anterior cruciate, should she require such a procedure, usually takes nine months. Irvine assistant Annette Smith Greene, who suffered a severe knee injury during her career at Texas, required 17 months.
Even if Lizarraga’s injury proves less serious than feared, Irvine has lost her for now. This is a 4-7 team fighting to improve on last season’s 5-22 mark. Matsuhara, in the first year of a rebuilding program, gathered the players after practice Monday and told them they would all have to find it in themselves to play better, much better, to fill some of the void.
“She’s not only our leading scorer,” Matsuhara said, “look at the playing time. She averages the most minutes of any player, too.”
Lizarraga was averaging 12.7 points, 2.0 rebounds, 1.4 steals and 2.3 three-pointers in 28 minutes a game.
What’s more, aside from Lizarraga, who has tried 71 three-pointers and made 25, the only player who has made more than two is Karie Yoshioka, who is seven for 11. Without the threat of Lizarraga getting hot outside, it suddenly gets easier to pack in a zone on forward Yvonne Catala, Irvine’s second-leading scorer at 11.6 points a game.
If Lizarraga indeed is out for the season, her college career is over. She has played in too many games to qualify as a medical redshirt, Matsuhara said.
Add UCI women: Irvine has been broadsided by injuries this season. Kari Rasmussen, a reserve center, was lost for the season after five games because of a knee injury, and starting point guard Chrissy Chang missed two games with a sprained ankle. Only nine players will make the team’s trip to Las Cruces, N.M. Beth Beers, a freshman center, will replace Lizarraga in the lineup, with sophomore guard Yoshioka, a recent addition to the lineup, in Lizarraga’s spot.
Loss Looks Better Now: The men’s team, which is 3-8 with a three-game losing streak, can take a bit of comfort in Tulane’s top 25 ranking.
The Green Wave, which is 9-0 and beat Irvine, 96-77, Dec. 30, joined the Associated Press rankings Monday. An 87-83 overtime victory at Louisville on Saturday night propelled Tulane into the poll. The Green Wave, in only its third season since the program was revived in 1989, hasn’t been ranked since 1949, the first year balloting was conducted.
Add UCI men: Coach Rod Baker intends to keep the same starters and stay the course philosophically despite Irvine’s recent losses.
“I’m not usually one to panic about things,” he said. “I wondered over the weekend if we were doing the right things. I think we are doing the right things, we just need to do them better.
“Instead of bailing out on the things we’re trying, we’re going to spend more time trying to do what we do better.”
When Danielle Pajer won the 100-yard breaststroke Saturday in the UCI Swimming & Diving Invitational at Heritage Park, she became the first woman in school history to win an individual event at the meet. Pajer, a junior co-captain and sister of former Irvine All-American swimmer Brian Pajer, also was a member of the winning 400-yard freestyle team. Stacey Stout, Amber Walz and Devon Sandlin were her teammates. It was the first Irvine women’s relay victory in the history of the meet.
Could-You-Repeat-That-Please Dept.: Former Irvine coach Bill Mulligan, on Feb. 13, 1991, citing some of the reasons he was retiring:
“I don’t want to spend the rest of my life around hotels in places like Las Cruces, even though (New Mexico State Coach Neil McCarthy) says it’s a hell of a place, or Logan, Utah. I’d just as soon not do that.”
Mulligan’s debut as a color commentator on several SportsChannel broadcasts of Big West Conference basketball games will be Thursday--in Las Cruces, N.M.