Donnie Freeman sets the record straight on injury, rehab and staying in Syracuse

Charlotte, N.C. – Now that it’s over, now that Donnie Freeman elected to have surgery to fix his foot and spent months rehabilitating and recovering, the Syracuse forward wants to set the record straight.

Freeman fractured the fifth metatarsal on his right foot in the middle of his freshman season. It was, he said, a Jones fracture, one of the more difficult foot injuries to heal because of the lack of blood flow to the region.

As SU fans fretted over his absence from games and from the lack of information flowing about his medical situation, Freeman and his family were deciding on a course of action.

How long should he wait to see if the foot healed without surgery? And at what point should the observation and waiting end and the surgery begin?

Because his foot “wasn’t really getting better” by waiting, Freeman decided on surgery. A pin was surgically implanted to hold the bone together.

“If you’ve never been through that, you won’t understand,” Freeman said here at ACC men’s basketball media day. “I think (fans) thought we were just kind of procrastinating and just kind of keeping it secret. That wasn’t it. We’ve been as transparent as we could be, told people everything we could. But we just genuinely didn’t know.”

The acclaimed SU forward had surgery Feb. 14. The procedure followed weeks of uncertainty about the health of his foot. His fifth metatarsal, he said, was so “fragile that even if I stepped wrong or anything, it would break all the way through.” The delicacy of the bone, he said, essentially dictated his course of action.

Freeman experienced the usual highs and lows of rehabilitation. Some days, he said, the foot felt healed. Other days, it was sore and worrisome.

He quickly learned how mentally challenging dealing with an injury can be.

“It’s tough. Like, it’s really tough,” he said. “I have a great supporting cast around me and they helped me stay afloat, but I must say it was hard mentally for me. I wasn’t down. I was just unsure of how I’d be when I came back. But yeah, now that I’m back I feel better than ever.”

Freeman came back, said SU coach Adrian Autry, as a bigger, stronger, better version of the player he was last season.

Freeman, a 6-foot-9 forward, was piecing together a remarkable freshman campaign. He was SU’s best defensive rebounder. He exhibited the ability to shoot from the perimeter and from the midrange. He was, basically, a budding ACC star.

He is now a year older, his body more developed, more mature.

“I thought Donnie had a really good summer after recovering from his injury,” Autry said. “Came back, changed his body, worked really, really hard.”

During his healing hiatus from basketball, Freeman kept busy watching games. He said he learned things during that time off. The game looked different to him from the sidelines, where he could divorce himself from his own play and analyze the game from a new perspective.

But as much as Freeman learned last year, as much as he soaked up strategy on various iPad basketball breakdowns, the reality of his idle situation distressed him.

“I think it actually made it worse,” he said. “Seeing my team kind of struggling made me want to be out there more.”

Freeman said it was May before he “really started moving around.” But the foot still didn’t feel right. He couldn’t explode off it. He couldn’t plant it. It still felt sore.

As the preseason workouts got deeper into the summer and Freeman kept working with athletic trainer Mike Mangano, his foot started feeling stronger. It got to the point where there was no discernible difference between his feet.

“That’s when I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m back,’ ” Freeman said.

Autry said Freeman’s mobility is better than a season ago. So is his strength and conditioning.

“He’s met all of those challenges,” Autry said. “I think he’s pushed through some tough times, hard times, challenging times, in terms of what we’ve done this summer, and it’s shown.”

Freeman said he never considered transferring. He believed he had “unfinished business” at Syracuse, an obligation to help steer the program back on track.

Over these past few months, his foot fully healed, he focused on one specific area to grow this season.

“The biggest thing I wanted to pinpoint was my defense,” he said. “I was young. But now you’ll see it. I know where I am on the floor now. I’m active. I’m getting steals, blocks, all the small things to help my team with.”