Less than three weeks before the Michigan State basketball team begins full practices with its Midnight Madness, junior guard Korie Lucious had arthroscopic surgery to repair a small meniscus tear in his left knee. The procedure was performed on Tuesday.
Here's a statement from head coach Tom Izzo from the official MSU men's basketball site:
"I feel bad for Korie," said head coach Tom Izzo. "He's had a great fall on the court, playing some of the best basketball of his time at Michigan State. The injury is similar to the one Goran Suton had during his senior year, and he was able to return in a short amount of time. We expect that Korie will heal in a similar fashion."
Recovery is expected to take between two to six weeks for Lucious, which puts him on a timetable to be ready for MSU's regular season opener on November 12 versus Eastern Michigan. As Izzo mentioned in his statement, Goran Suton suffered a similiar injury two years ago and returned in 17 days.
Last season for the Spartans, Lucious averaged 4.1 points and 3.3 assists per game.
SB Nation's Michigan State blog, The Only Colors, notes that this is the second straight season that Lucious's offseason preparations have been affected by injury.
This is the second consecutive year in which Lucious will go into the season without the benefit of a complete offseason of preparation. Last year, a broken foot suffered in the national championship game cost him basically the entire offseason. The good news is that he was still able to get into the flow of things pretty quickly, averaging 20.6 minutes, 6.1 points, and 5.3 assists per game in MSU's first 7 games.
Click over to The Only Colors for more on which players will have to cover for Lucious's absence if he's not able to recover quickly.