Durham bouncing back after knee injury
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Juwan Durham will not be playing basketball anytime soon, but he checked in with Rivals.com on Wednesday night to give an update on how he is coming along with his rehab following surgery to repair a torn ACL at the end of February.
"I feel fine, I'm ready to get back to start playing," Durham said before discussing the progress he's made in physical therapy. "It is really challenging. At first it wasn't as hard because they didn't want to mess up anything after I got the surgery so it was pretty easy. As time went on, it began to get really hard.
"Right now, I go three days a week and it is really tough. I have to do things to strengthen everything around my knee like my quads, my hamstrings and my calf. Like I do a leg press and I'll do like 240 pounds for one leg eight times. It's just really tough at times but I got to keep motivated and keep my head into it and I'll be fine."
The 6-foot-9 rising senior at Tampa Prep tore the ACL in his right knee in a Florida high school regional semifinal game running after a loose ball.
"I was going for a steal, I tapped the ball out and I was running after it," said Durham. "There was a guy in front of me and a guy to my left side. I tried to pop the ball so the two defenders could run into each other and I could just get the ball quickly, and when I tried to pop the ball up and stop, my knee buckled."
Right away, Durham knew he was seriously injured.
"I felt that jolt of pain and I knew that it was not good," he said.
Durham had surgery on Feb. 28 and began physical therapy one week later.
Family, friends and teammates have offered encouragement to Durham, who is handling his situation with an impressive level of maturity.
"Everybody is just telling me to go into therapy and have a positive attitude about everything," Durham said. "People think I'm discouraged or I'm sad about it but I'm really not. I see it as a minor setback for a major comeback, so I'm not discouraged about it. The sky's the limit when I get back."
Through it all, he said the most difficult part was not being able to play with his teammates.
"It's been really tough," Durham said. "Sometimes I hate going to the summer league games because I know I can't help my team but I just try to go in there with a positive mindset for the team and tell them that they're going to be able to do it and we've got to win this game. I just say that to my teammates and try to think positive."
One part of his game that Durham can work on, with some limitations, is shooting.
"I go to the YMCA and shoot every day but other than that I can't do anything," Durham said. "I go with a friend or sometimes alone. I can run and I can jump a little bit but not like 100 percent yet."
The set time for Durham's return to full basketball action is October, but that may get pushed back, even though his rehab is slightly ahead of schedule.
"My parents want me to wait a little and see how I feel throughout the first half of the season," Durham said. "They told me if I feel fine then probably around December or January that would be okay for me to come back, but it depends on how I feel."
Though four months have passed since he last played in a game, the four-star power forward is still receiving scholarship offers. Durham listed Maryland, Indiana, Auburn and Syracuse as schools that have offered him since his injury.
In May, Durham took an unofficial visit to USF and last Friday he traveled to Miami, with his Tampa Prep teammates, for the Hurricanes' annual team camp.
"I had a good time at USF," said Durham. "They made a lot of good points about staying home and staying with the local team and things like that. But also I have to see what school fits me best and what school I want to go to. But I had a really good time. I enjoyed myself there and got a really good feel for the coaches. They're really nice people."
And Miami?
"It was really fun," he said. "I had a really good time and, like every other school, they made good points about why I should go there. They told me that I'd fit in their program really well and they'll develop me as a young man and as a basketball player."
Though he doesn't have dates scheduled, Durham is thinking of taking unofficial visits to two other schools.
"I plan on going to UConn soon," he said before turning to another in-state school. "I've spoken to (Florida head) coach Mike White briefly. He talks to my parents a lot and very little to me because of the way my parents want me to handle my recruitment. But they keep in touch a lot. I'll probably end up going up there sometime soon to meet with them and get to know them."
The No. 20 player in the Rivals150, Durham has taken both the SAT and ACT - he is awaiting his ACT results - and is thinking about narrowing down his list of schools but admitted that he hasn't "put my finger on it yet."
However, he has a clear sense of what will be important to him when it comes time to make his school choice.
"I know what I want out of a school and a basketball program," Durham said. "I know that you can't guarantee something but I just want the opportunity to go to a school and perform. I also want to go to a school where I feel like I feel at home and I get along with the team really well."
Russ Wood is a basketball recruiting analyst for Rivals.com and Inside the Gators. You can click here to follow him on Twitter.
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