The St. John’s basketball team is exhausting every possible option to keep Brady Dunlap from having to undergo surgery on his abdomen, sending the sophomore to Toronto on Wednesday to consult with a specialist.
Rick Pitino updated the status of Dunlap after the Red Storm’s 63-58 victory over Georgetown on Tuesday night.
“They want to do surgery,” Pitino said of the opinions of other doctors Dunlap has visited with.
The specialist that will examine Brady Dunlap works with the Toronto Raptors and worked with Pitino’s star at Kentucky, Jamal Mashburn, who has a similar injury to the St. John’s shooter and did not require surgery.
“I wanted to see if [the specialist] could do the same thing for [Dunlap],” Pitino continued. “If he can’t, then we have to go the surgical route and he’s out for the season.”
The injury is related to the hip aliment that kept him out of St. John’s victory over Virginia in the Bahamas. Upon further examination by doctors, it was revealed that Brady Dunlap didn’t have a hip injury, it was a small tear in his abdomen.
Dunlap already underwent surgery this season on the UCL in his hand which is forcing him to miss 4-6 weeks, but Pitino isn’t counting on him to return this season regardless of the latest medical opinion.
“Either way, I don’t think Brady is going to play this year,” he said. “I would just like to keep him away from surgery because it’s three to four months [of recovery time].”
Brady Dunlap, who has missed the last seven games, had been averaging 5.7 points and 2.2 rebounds per game on 46.5-percent shooting from the floor and 37.5-percent from 3-point range.
The Red Storm are likely to look into getting a medical redshirt for Brady Dunlap if he does not play again this season.