THE ROAD TO RECOVERY

THE ROAD TO RECOVERY

11/3/2020 4:21:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Richards, Ursin ‘Getting Better Every Day’ After Midair Collision

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            Taking it one day, even one step at a time, Baylor senior guard DiDi Richards has made gradual progress over the last 10 days since suffering a spinal cord injury in a collision with Lady Bear teammate Moon Ursin.
            "Today, I'm doing a lot more movement, my walk is looking a lot better," Richards said via Zoom during Monday's media session. "I still need some support in some way, but every day is getting easier. So, I'm hoping there will be a season, and I'm letting everybody know that I will be playing this season."
            While the injury Richards sustained was nonstructural, Baylor Director of Athletic Medicine Alex Olson said the timeline for her return is still uncertain. She had a "full head-to-toe evaluation" by Dr. Alan Martin, a Dallas neurologist, and "there were no abnormalities in any of the scans," Olson said.
            "That's all really good news and encouraging, along with the fact that every day she's progressing and getting better" Olson said. "Now, the timeline, we don't know. It's just by how she's feeling. We're optimistic that she can come back this year, but there are no guarantees that's going to happen. We just take it as fast as she can go."
            Baylor coach Kim Mulkey asked fans to continue praying for Richards and Ursin and their full recovery.
            "You can't rush time," Mulkey said. "We don't know if she will wake up (and be better) tomorrow, next week, next month. But, we're going to do everything in our power to get DiDi back to being DiDi off the floor, walking and doing things that she's used to doing, before we even thinking about basketball. . . . She's tough, she's mentally strong, she's a leader, she's happy. And she's in a place where we're going to give her every resource we have."
            The midair collision happened during an Oct. 24 intrasquad scrimmage, when Ursin was sprinting back to the defensive end after a basket, and both players "go up at the height of their jump and collide."
            "Moon's face and head and shoulder hit DiDi on the right side of her hip area, and it looks like DiDi does like a pirouette in the air," Mulkey said. "They both fall to the ground, but neither one of them fell to the ground like dead weight. DiDi falls on her left hip and kind of braces her fall with two hands."
            When Olson got to Richards on the floor, she was unconscious "for a short period of time, maybe a minute," he said. After regaining consciousness, "she was very lucid and was able to respond to all of my questions," Olson said.
            "At that point, (Richards) said she had some trouble in her lower extremities, and that's why we took the spinal cord precautions from that point on, to call EMS to transport her to Baylor/Scott & White Hospital. And from there, to even now, what we're doing just from a rehab is spinal cord."
            Daily rehab sessions include work on the AlterG treadmill, "which basically takes away gravity," Olson said.
            "If DiDi weighs X amount, we can go put in the computer that we want to take away 50% of her body weight. So now, DiDi is able to go through a walking pattern that's normal-looking without the same amount of weight on her legs, until her legs begin to get stronger and can really carry the full body weight," he said.
            The 6-foot-1 Richards was named the Big 12 and National Defensive Player of the Year during a COVID-shortened 2019-20 season, when she averaged a career-high 8.2 points, 5.7 assists and 4.9 rebounds and added 52 steals and 25 blocks.
            "Obviously, DiDi is a '3' (wing) player, but because of her experience and her leadership, she was going to have to play four of the five positions on the floor for us," Mulkey said.
            After using grad transfers in the point guard role each of the two previous seasons, including Te'a Cooper last year, Mulkey had planned on playing Richards more at the point.
            "The contingency plan is that we're going to have Jordyn Oliver and Sarah Andrews be our primary ball-handlers," Mulkey said. "Sarah, being a freshman, it's going to take her a little bit longer to adjust to this level, but she's working hard at it every day. I think Jordyn understands that she has to be the most experience ball-handler that we have if we had to play a game today, and she's playing with a lot of confidence right now."
            Ursin, a 5-6 senior guard from Destrehan, La., has been in concussion protocol for the last week and a half. In a five-phase recovery mandated by the NCAA, Ursin is in phase 3, Olson said, "and we don't progress her to phase 4 until her symptoms are gone."
            "I'm feeling much better today than I was a week ago," said Ursin, who averaged 5.1 points and 3.0 rebounds while knocking down 12 3-pointers. "I'm getting there every day. So, that's a good sign. Now, I'm ready to be out there with my girls and just play ball."
            With transfers Jaden Owen (UCLA) and Kamaria McDaniel (Penn State) both having to sit out this season, that leaves the Lady Bears with eight eligible players until Ursin and Richards return to the court.
            Baylor is scheduled to open the season with back-to-back home games against Central Arkansas on Nov. 25 and Northwestern State on Nov. 27.
            "With DiDi out, we now have lost four starters," Mulkey said. "While we have the talent and some experience back, we don't have them in the same roles they played last year. We will continue to work every day, and we will just look over there at DiDi and think, 'What a blessing that she has no structural damage to the spine.' But, we look over there every day and go, 'How can you have a lazy day or take a day off when you see a kid like that who works so hard trying to get back out here on the floor?'''