Women’s basketball player, Keyen Green, returns from injury

After making the transition from high school to the NCAA level with relative ease and dominating the Big South Conference in her first season at Liberty, Keyen Green hit a bump in her basketball career Nov. 24, 2017, in a game against the University of Houston.

“I went for a rebound and came down on somebody’s foot, as a lot of basketball players do,” Green said. “So I thought I just rolled my ankle – just a sprain, maybe out for a few days.”

She was partially correct. After sitting out two games, she was back on the floor only days later and played the remainder of her sophomore season, earning Big South Player of the Year honors and helping lead the Lady Flames to an appearance in the NCAA Tournament.

However, something else had happened. 

Green has a history of rolled ankles, dating back to her high school career, so she did not bother to get an MRI immediately after the original incident against Houston. The pain was bearable enough that she could play and even dominate, averaging almost 13 points per game, but she could sense that the injury was more serious than she thought.

“From the start, I knew it was bigger than an ankle sprain,” Green said. “I was playing the rest of the season knowing it was probably something bigger than what we thought it was, but I felt that the rehab did enough that I felt good enough to play on it.”

X-ray scans after the season revealed a fracture in her ankle and several torn ligaments, an injury which set in motion a long, grueling recovery process that she is still working through. 

After the 2017-18 season, Green had the option to either get surgery immediately or rest for a few months and get the procedure done during the time of summer workouts. She chose to have surgery immediately, but the recovery process ended up longer than expected, causing her to miss her entire junior year and redshirt. 

 “I knew I wanted to have surgery because I just knew I wanted (my ankle) fixed,” Green said. “But I also knew that with the surgery, I did not want to be rushed back to playing. It was actually not even presented to me that I would have to sit out my junior year – I chose that.”

The decision was not easy, though. She is a competitor, and it was difficult at times to want to keep going with the rehab process. 

“I just (had) to have a good support group because it can get depressing,” Green said. “A lot of times, we as athletes, our identity is all wrapped up in our performances, and now I (was) not performing then – I (was) not playing at all.”

While she was not able to perform on the court, Green had the chance to learn the game from a totally new perspective, as a coach and a cheerleader for her teammates. 

As much as Head Coach Carey Green would have loved to have her on the court during his team’s first season in the Atlantic Sun Conference, he got to see a new side of Keyen Green in her time on the sidelines.

“(Keyen) has a tender heart and she really is concerned for other people,” Carey Green said. “It was easy for her to come alongside and try to encourage (her teammates). She is by nature a nurturing, loving person, and I saw that come to the forefront.” 

During her training and rehab in the offseason leading up to the current season, Keyen Green experienced another setback in the form of a fracture, this time
to her shin.

After fully recovering from her ankle injury, she had another surgery during the summer and is still getting back to full speed.

“I am still trying to get back,” Keyen Green said. “My conditioning right now would be fine for the Big South, but for the ASUN, they run and all they do is run.”

While her conditioning has been her biggest struggle, Keyen Green’s strong work ethic and training have helped her gradually increase her playing time this season. 

She is now averaging more than 20 minutes of playing time and leads the team with 13.7 points and 7.6 rebounds per game.

“She punches the clock,” Carey Green said. “She comes to work. She is involved in practice and I do not know if she has missed a day since she had the opportunity to come back. She is locked in.”

In a recent game against Jacksonville Jan. 11, Keyen Green surpassed 1,000 career points and hit season highs in points (29) and rebounds (16).

Many people would say that she seems to be returning to her old form, but for Keyen Green the rehab process over the last year has not been about getting back but about being better than before.

“I think I still have a long way to go,” Keyen Green said. “But my goal is not really to get back to where I was – it is to exceed it. So I have a lot of work to do in that category.”

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Follow Christian Weaner on Twitter @christianweaner