After my unfortunate mishap in a playoff game on Monday, March 30th, that sent me into emergency surgery to repair a dislocated middle finger and the volar plate over the knuckle, my team, Mersin Buyuksehir, was still able to advance to the second round of the Turkish basketball league playoffs without me. For some reason, however, unbeknownst to me, the Turkish league chooses to pause the playoffs to play another tournament, the Turkish Cup. It’s a single elimination tourney where the top 8 teams randomly draw to determine the match-ups. Instead of a bracket, teams again draw from the winners to determine the 2nd round match-ups. Then the winners play for the championship. Another important victory that would bring pride and status to any team able to accomplish this feat.

As if me being out weren’t already tough enough, we drew Galatasaray for the first round of the Turkish Cup, a formidable opponent. They just won the Europe Cup Championship and they seem to be hitting their stride now. This draw only increased the team’s need and desire to have me back playing, sooner than later. The first game would be Sunday April 12th, less than 2 weeks after my surgery. The doctor initially gave a recovery time of 6 weeks that we were hoping to cut in half. Now, we needed a miracle. Friday, that’s Good Friday, I went to see the doc. He made a soft cast for me to play in. I use ‘to play in’ loosely, as this was by no means a piece of equipment that I would recommend anyone try catching, throwing, dribbling, rebounding or shooting with.

He cut it open so that it would be removable. The pictures don’t do it justice. This thing is huge. To play in it however, I had to tape it on so it wouldn’t slide off and hurt my finger with all the movement. This is when “ROBO-HOOPS” emerged. I have a seriously huge contraption going on here and I’m just thankful that it’s my left hand.

The first practice I felt completely awkward and there was a little pain in the finger. I spent most of the time trying to come up with the tape job above. Luckily the men’s team trainer showed up and gave us this halfway workable option. The next day, after we travelled to Kayseri, the city hosting the Turkish Cup, I practiced again, as “ROBO-HOOPS” and this time, I felt a little better. I was able to catch passes, shoot and even dribble a little bit.

After discussion with the coach, we decided I would be used in the game, ‘in case of emergency’ only. Of course that really meant I would be playing. I already had my mind wrapped around that concept, especially since I forgot to mention that Allie Quigley, one of our leading scorers, sprained her ankle 2 days before, adding insult to injury.

I played 26 minutes and did a decent enough job considering I hadn’t practiced for 10 days, my finger was still healing and I was “ROBO-HOOPS”. I wasn’t as aggressive as usual and a few of my shots felt a little weird, but I was glad I was able to help out. Unfortunately, we lost and were eliminated from the Turkish Cup in the first round. Hopefully we can regroup and do damage in the 2nd round of the playoffs and advance to the finals.

Stay tuned for more on our road to the Turkish Championship!