ALBANY — UAlbany men's basketball redshirt sophomore Justin Neely will miss the remainder of this season and will seek a medical redshirt for the year, Great Danes head coach Dwayne Killings confirmed Thursday.
“We were trying to get him back, and I don't think he feels comfortable. I think he needs some more time to recover, so he won't play [the rest of] this season,” Killings said during an availability with area reporters. “He will go back to rehabbing, and focus on getting his body back. The most important thing for him is his health, and the most important thing for us is to focus on the season.”
Neely, the America East Rookie of the Year in 2021-22, tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee early during the 2022-23 season, in the 2022 Albany Cup against Siena. He missed the remainder of the 2022-23 season and didn't return to the court until Dec. 5, 2023 against Potsdam.
This season, the 6-foot-6 native of Miami played in six games, averaging 1.8 points and 1.3 rebounds in 6.5 minutes per game. He hadn't played more than five minutes in a game since Dec. 16 against Drexel.
Killings said that Neely experienced swelling in his repaired knee during his comeback.
“It got hard for him to practice and really get out there for the full time. You know, if you come out and watch us practice, there's periods where we're half-court and there's periods where we're going up and down,” Killings said, “and he just wasn't able to go up and down. He was able to compete at a pretty good level when we were just in the half-court, but the problem was changing ends and the way his knee responded to that.”
Neely had a medical appointment this past week in Florida with the surgeon who operated on his knee. That doctor visit came in between two games that saw Neely not play for the Great Danes, who are 9-7 overall and 1-0 in league action heading into this Saturday’s America East Conference game against Binghamton.
The team has struggled to find a fifth starter this season, and a healthy Neely was always the team’s best option to fill that spot. In recent weeks, Killings had held out hope that Neely could eventually play a significant role with the Great Danes, but had stressed the redshirt sophomore was not ready to do that yet.
On Thursday, Killings elaborated on why that was the case.
“Just watching practice — the productivity, how he's moving, he just wasn't . . . ready to go out there and [make an] impact in a college basketball game. That's why his opportunities were so short,” Killings said of Neely, who didn’t speak Thursday with reporters. “You can be as optimistic as you want, but if the body's not ready for the wear and tear of college basketball, it's just hard to put them out there.”
College basketball is a physical sport — and, the combination of energy and intensity Neely brings to the court is part of what makes him one of the program’s top players, when healthy.
“It's just a lot of bumping and grinding, and physical play,” Killings said. “He's just not at the point where he's ready to get out there and compete.”
Jonathan Beagle, UAlbany’s sophomore center, said the news that Neely would miss the rest of the season was tough to hear.
“It hurts, obviously. Justin does a lot of good things. He rebounds. He can be a spark plug coming into the game. He's a really good player,” Beagle said. “So, it obviously hurts, but we know next man up — and I think we trust in our next man up.
“But we're rooting for him. We can't wait to get him back.”