Keita Bates-Diop walked — not limped, walked — into the interview room Thursday evening in the bowels of Value City Arena to meet with reporters. He casually entered through the double doors, strolled up to the podium, pulled out his chair and sat down.
Any other player on Ohio State’s team and this is no big deal. But Bates-Diop has a rod inserted in his left leg after he had surgery to repair a stress fracture in his shin. This only happened recently. Like, within the last month.
“I shouldn’t have been off crutches as quick as I was,” he joked.
But while Bates-Diop says he’s ahead of schedule in his recovery, which is obviously a positive, it’s still been a rough couple of weeks for the Buckeyes’ best two-way player. His teammates are going through quite a rough patch on the court without him and he recently had a family emergency that nearly took his younger brother’s life.
Kai Bates-Diop, Keita’s 16-year-old brother and a sophomore high school standout in Illinois, collapsed recently during a basketball practice after he experienced sudden cardiac arrest. He was revived, however, and has since recovered. His first day back at school was Thursday, Keita said.
“He’s doing really well,” Bates-Diop said of his younger brother.
Dealing with the family tragedy was far from easy, though. It weighed on Keita as it would any junior in college who is away from home.
And not to compare the two, but sitting on the bench as his teammates struggled on the floor has also took its toll on Bates-Diop. Ohio State is just 15-13 overall on the season and 5-10 in the Big Ten. Prior to his injury, Bates-Diop averaged 9.7 points and 5.2 rebounds per game while simultaneously serving as the Buckeyes’ best perimeter defender.
He knows he could help if he were healthy, but he’s not.
“It’s extremely frustrating because I want to help and I know I could help, but I can’t,” Bates-Diop said. “That’s probably the worst part.”
Bates-Diop was never actually healthy this season, though. Not 100 percent, anyway.
His shin injury occurred early in the summer, he said, and after some consistent pain, he decided to sit out the final few weeks of summer workouts. He returned once practice for the season began but “it just got worse and worse.”
Bates-Diop continued to play through the pain and then suffered a pretty severe high ankle sprain in his other leg during Ohio State’s win over Providence on Nov. 17. He returned to the lineup after missing five games, but as he never fully recovered from his shin injury, the decision to shut things down for the season was made Jan. 5 following the Buckeyes’ loss to Purdue — a game Bates-Diop did not dress for.
He’s roughly a month into his recovery and should be fully healthy come summer workouts. Right now, Ohio State has him working on upper body strength before he begins pool rehabilitation and running. That is still a few weeks away.
Since he is not currently playing, Bates-Diop said he has learned a lot.
“Just my perspective on things,” he said. “I was in it the first couple of months playing and you can’t really see everything when you’re playing. Once you take a step back and look outside the box, you can see all the things we’re doing right and wrong at this point."
“I’m trying to get these guys to get my perspective because I’m different than a coach. I’m your friend, your brother, all that. The perspective on what I see, what’s going right and wrong.”
This was supposed to be a rebounding season for Ohio State and a breakout one for Bates-Diop. Neither happened.
Bates-Diop admitted the basketball side of things coupled with the family issues has been difficult. The hope, of course, is there is some benefit down the road.
“It’s been pretty hard at some points,” Bates-Diop said. “I have a good family, I have good friends here and back home. This environment here has helped me a lot being around the guys. But we all have stuff going on whether we show it or not. … It’s just how we deal with it. Good people around you can help and I have that.”
