Putting together a comeback

By Whitey Reid

Published: July 28, 2008

If there’s one player that the Virginia men’s basketball team could ill afford to be without for the 2008-09 season it would likely be Mamadi Diane.
The 6-foot-5 wing player, who is one of just two returning seniors, is the team’s leading returning scorer and shotblocker.
So when the Daily Progress reported in June that Diane had undergone surgery to his left foot, a collective groan reverberated throughout Wahoo Nation.
However, Diane says his injury is improving every day and he expects to be ready well before the official opening of the season in October.
“Everything’s been real good,” said Diane, who averaged 11.8 points as a junior. “I’ve just been working out and doing what I can.”
That means no running or jumping — just a lot of quality time with Virginia strength and conditioning coach Shaun Brown in the weight room, plus some training on a stationary bike.
After undergoing the surgery, Diane was on crutches for about a month. The former DeMatha Catholic (Md.) standout has been in a walking boot for about two weeks now; he expects to be out of it by mid-August, though he won’t play in the team’s exhibition games in Montreal over Labor Day weekend.
“When I get back, I’ll have more than enough time to really buckle down,” Diane said. “In a way, it kind of forces me to buckle down and go out every day with the thought of really improving because I missed so much time. I know that I’ll really have to kick things up, so in a way it can be good.”
Last season, Diane was demoted to the bench for 11 of the team’s final 12 games. While Diane refused to use the injury as an excuse for his play, the reality is he was likely playing with a broken sesamoid bone in his foot for most of the year.
According to Footphyscians.com, the sesamoid acts as a pulley for tendons and helps the big toe move normally. It also provides leverage when the big toe “pushes off” during running.
“It started in November and just carried on,” Diane said. “It’s not really a big bone or one that causes so much pain that you couldn’t play, but it got to the point after the season where it was time to take care of it.”
Diane, who has always been one of the best — if not the best — conditioned players on the team, believes the injury might actually turn out to be a blessing come January and February.
“I’ll have had all this time off that I’ve never really had,” he said, “so maybe it could be a different feeling — not as tired and worn out as I would be usually.”
The down time this summer has afforded Diane the chance to watch some of his new teammates in action. He says he’s been impressed with what he’s seen in pick-up games out of incoming freshmen Sylven Landesberg, John Brandenburg and Assane Sene.
“They’re all good players,” Diane said. “They all bring something different to the team. It will be interesting to see how things go once we get into practice — who are the hard workers and who really gets after it…but they’ve been coming along real well.”
Diane says it’s hard to believe he’s already going into his senior year with fellow fourth-year Lars Mikalauskas.
“I remember going back to freshman year and us being roommates, and us just talking to each other about how hard it was and how many problems we were having — and now we’re leaders of the team,” Diane said.
“We have to help the younger players through everything we went through and basically lead the team to a winning season. I’m very excited for it.”