Capel says Butts will redshirt
Jason Capel, Appalachian State’s coach, said Thursday that Ike Butts, the Mountaineers’ senior center who has missed every game this season following a knee injury in August, will be redshirted this season.
Butts is recovering from surgery to his left knee, which he injured in a pickup game. Last season as a junior, Butts averaged 8.5 points and 8.1 rebounds a game while bothered with an injury to his right knee.
Butts said Thursday that he hadn’t completely ruled out returning this season although he doubts that he will, and Capel said that he will indeed redshirt this season and return next season.
“Ike won’t say it,” Capel said. “Ike wants me to say it.
“Ike will be redshirted. We’re this deep into the season.”
Butts said that he feels as if he is recovering, although the process has been slower than he hoped. “It doesn’t feel as good as I had hoped at this point and time,” Butts said.
Butts returned to full practice Nov. 29 for the first time since the surgery, but said that the knee didn’t respond well afterward.
“After the practice, it locks up and I can’t bend it,” Butts said. “It felt like that three or four days afterward so having it feel like that is just something I don’t want to go through. It was like that last year and just got worse and worse.”
Butts said he feels the knee is getting stronger, but that it’s just taking more time than he had hoped. And time, for this season, has practically expired with the Mountaineers set to begin the bulk of their Southern Conference schedule with a game at Davidson on Wednesday.
“I want to be 100 percent,” Butts said. “The whole thing for me has been if I’m 100 percent I’d go, if I’m not 100 percent I wouldn’t play.”
Capel said: “I just want him to be healthy. He played through a lot of pain last year. I want him to be healthy and have a great senior year.”
Which means wait until next season.
“Will we miss Ike, sure,” Capel said. “He’s 6-10, 280 pounds. And I feel good saying 280 pounds because he was 300 last year. He’s worked hard to keep it off. He gives us an offensive and defensive presence that we don’t have, and one person isn’t going to make up for it. Teams have to prepare for Ike. Teams have to double-team Ike, and that makes life easier on Donald Sims, and makes life easier on Jeremi Booth.
“But we have to continue to work with Andre Williamson…to be more assertive, and Petey Hausley to be more assertive and Nathan Healy, who needs to be more assertive and play within himself and Anthony Breeze, when he comes back, needs to be more assertive. Do we have enough? Yes, we do. But we all have to do it together to make up for the absence of Ike.”