Surreal game last night.
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We have some ties to Wheaton College in the Chicago area and I try to get out to a few games a year there. They have the #1 scorer in D3 this year who is a hi volume 3 point shooter and is averaging 33 a game. His name is Ashton Francis.
Last night was not his night, he only scored 20, but what happened at the 1:13 mark will stay with me the rest of my life.
Wheaton had come back from 31 down to get within 8 until a late run doomed them. Francis got fouled on a three, but when the fouler landed his foot broke very grotesquely, kind of like the Louisville lad a few years back. Players were walking away looking like they were going to vomit.
The crowd of about 1000 grew silent. Which then exposed us to the poor kids screams. We watched for 20 minutes as he was attended to, went into shock, then calmed down. Players from both sides huddled and prayed. Not sure why they didn’t bring a stretcher in, but a board was brought in and he was carried out to the applause of the crowd.
I was kind of curious to see if the game would continue. It had cast such a pawl over the gym that no one really cared about the very outside chance that Wheaton would come back and win. The coaches met the refs and the players took the court. The FT shooter went to the line, still in dead silence, made all 3 with 1 rebounder on the lane. North Central inbounded, got across half court, shot clock expired. Wheaton inbounded, and stood with the ball. The crowd walked out in stunned silence.
We see these things on TV, and it’s a little disturbing. We see it live just out in front of our seats and it’s shattering. As much as I wanted Wheaton to win, to see Ashton score 54 as he did the other night, it didn’t matter a bit. Seeing a kid with who knows what kind of injuries, end his college career that way was just very perspective changing. These are just games.
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@wissox Ya that stinks, one of my best friends in high school broke his foot really bad in football (his foot was a 180 degrees the wrong way). I dang near puked, hate to see it happen on Tv but it’s definitely worse in person.
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Saw a Twitter from the kid. He tore ligaments in ankle broke his fibula or tibia I forget which and dislocated the ankle. He’s home from hospital vowing to join his teammates in practice tomorrow.
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Alex smith just left the hospital from his nasty accident, been a month in there. Good man.
