Angelina Wolvert wasn’t thinking happy thoughts when her left knee suddenly buckled inward against Washington last Thursday.
The injury occurred during a scramble for a loose ball about five minutes into the game. Wolvert, who was walking backwards when she saw the ball had been recovered, said a Husky player fell onto the outside of her knee.
Wolvert then collapsed.
“I thought I was done for the season,” said Wolvert, Oregon’s leading scorer with 13.5 points per game at the time. “I just thought it was done. It hurt real bad, and it just didn’t feel right. You know, you get a gut feeling, and I didn’t know really what to think.”
Oregon trainers also thought the injury was serious, originally diagnosing it as a level two sprain of the medial collateral ligament. Such an injury could have cost Wolvert more than a month of recovery.
But the injury was less severe than anticipated. Ducks head coach Jody Runge said that the best-case scenario has Wolvert back in action in time for No. 23 Arizona next Thursday.
“It’s totally dependent on her pain and the stability of it,” Runge said. “We just have to see how quickly she comes along, because everybody’s different, and there’s no protocol as far as how long. It just depends on the individual.”
During rehabilitation, Wolvert spends about four hours a day in physical therapy and must wear a knee brace. Runge said Wolvert can jog forward, but can’t cut side-to-side. Wolvert can also shoot jump shots, but isn’t practicing with the team.
“Right now, we’re just waiting for it to heal itself,” Wolvert said. “There’s nothing else I can do but heal it, just let my body heal.”
Playing without Wolvert and injured forward Lindsey Dion in Pullman, Wash., Oregon dropped a heartbreaker to unranked Washington State two nights after the injury. But Wolvert said her team should have won despite her absence.
“I don’t think [my team] is going to be missing anything,” she said. “When [Shaquala Williams] got hurt, people were like, ‘Oh God, the whole team will fall apart.’ Well, it didn’t, and it won’t, and it didn’t matter who we lost.

“The team is just very resilient and they face adversity really well.”
Wolvert had never missed playing in a game before sitting out against the Cougars.
Oregon center Jenny Mowe tried to cheer up Wolvert, a close friend of hers, after the injury happened.
“Jenny was making fun of me because I made a funny noise when it happened. She was like, ‘You sounded like you were like, aaahhhh!’” said Wolvert, laughing as she imitated her teammate. “She had to make fun of me somehow.”

Same Dion, different injury
As Monday’s practice wound down inside McArthur Court, Dion sat beneath a side basket with her left ankle wrapped in an ice bag. Several minutes passed before she removed the ice and limped to join her teammates on the sideline.
Soon after, Dion said that she’d be ready to play against Southern California come Thursday.
“I got to do a little bit of stuff [Monday],” Dion said. “They just didn’t want me to do five-on-five, in case anything strange happened, like landing on someone’s foot again.”
Dion, who should partake in full practice today, sprained her ankle against Washington just minutes after Wolvert’s injury. Dion’s career has been filled with injuries, which is unfortunate for Oregon because with her in the starting lineup, the Ducks are 29-4.
But through all her prior setbacks, Dion had never sprained her ankle.
“I had no idea it would be so painful,” she said.