By David Carducci
Record-Courier staff writer
Kent State senior Chris Singletary is expected to miss between two and six weeks following surgery on Friday to repair torn meniscus in his right knee.
“It’s a tough situation, losing a preseason all-conference player and a guy we’ve built a lot of our offense around,” said KSU head coach Geno Ford. “This happens to teams all the time. We’ve been fortunate not to have it happen around here in a while. Now we just have to have someone step up and fill Chris’ role.”
Senior Mike McKee replaced Singletary at small forward in the Golden Flashes’ starting lineup Wednesday night at Youngstown State. The injury will also mean several other changes to the KSU rotation.
“Anthony Simpson and Frank Henry-Ala will have to slide over (from power forward) and play some three now,” said Ford. “We may also have to play (true freshman) Ian Pinckney there.”
The Flashes were prepared to tinker with their starting lineup even before learning they would be without Singletary for an extended period, moving senior center Brandon Parks back into the starting lineup and sliding sophomore Justin Greene to power forward.
Singletary was injured on the final play of regulation Sunday when he banked in a basket to send the Flashes’ game with Wisconsin-Green Bay to overtime.
Officially, a Kent State press release said Singletary will miss “the next few games” and “no definitive return date has been set at this point,” but Ford admitted “we won’t know for sure until they get in there and get a look at the knee.”
Typically, recovery time for a mensicectomy or removal of the torn areas of the meniscus is four-to-six weeks. Some “best case” scenarios can have an athlete back in action in closer to two weeks.
If the meniscus needs to be repaired, recovery time can be two to three months.
Singletary is averaging 11.0 points and 4.7 rebounds through three games this season. The preseason All-MAC selection led the Flashes with 19 points and seven rebounds in a season-opening 69-66 win over Samford on Nov. 13.