Iowa Star Lucy Olsen Smiles Through Description of 'Deep' Knee Laceration
The Iowa Hawkeyes women's basketball team had to play two games without star scorer Lucy Olsen last week after Olsen suffered a strange and graphic injury to her knee.
The former Villanova Wildcats standout didn't play in Iowa's November 28 game against Rhode Island nor their November 29 game against BYU after she, according to a series of X posts from her father, "had a freak trip and fall while leaving the raised playing surface and landed flush on the sharp edge of the court."
He then added, "It split open the skin all the way across her kneecap and required a ton of stitches to close it back up."
It split open the skin all the way across her kneecap and required a ton of stitches to close it back up.
— Roland Olsen (@rolandolsen321) November 30, 2024
The Iowa medical staff was on hand and sutured Lucy courtside under the added lighting of flashlights from half a dozen cell phones.
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Thankfully, Olsen has since recovered from this gruesome-sounding injury. And she was even willing to speak about it with a smile during a recent media availability session.
"I tripped off the court because it was elevated, and then I fell," Olsen said while stifling a laugh, per an X post from Pat Harty. "And there was a tile and I just scraped my knee on it, and I just cut it open... pretty badly."
When asked about the nature of the injury, Olsen said, "When I was in the bathroom right away, there wasn't blood and it didn't hurt. But... I saw something white. They tell me it wasn't my kneecap, but I think it was my kneecap.
"It was deep, yeah," Olsen added. "And then when I was washing my hands, it started gushing blood. And... I couldn't look at it after that. But it was really deep."
Lucy Olsen, with help from Aaliyah Guyton, talks about suffering a knee laceration in Cancun. pic.twitter.com/q267DcUafm
— Pat Harty (@PatHarty) December 3, 2024
Luckily Olsen is now fully healed, and Hawkeyes fans can expect her back in the starting lineup against the Tennessee Volunteers on December 7.
Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.