RedStormReport.com - Swingman's return slightly delayed

October 20, 2009

Press Release

QUEENS, N.Y. - Red Storm redshirt senior Anthony Mason Jr.'s highly-anticipated return to the court for the 2009-10 season will be slightly delayed, as head coach Norm Roberts announced on Tuesday that the swingman will miss the next four to six weeks while recovering from a hamstring injury re-aggravated during team practice over the weekend.

"We're disappointed for Anthony, because we know he wants to be out there. We have to give him time to recover so when he joins us on the court, he'll be 100 percent," said Roberts. "We'll obviously be very happy and excited to get Anthony back. He is such a versatile scorer, and his ability to be our main scorer on any given night makes our team that much deeper."

The Red Storm medical staff brought Mason Jr. along slowly since initially injuring the hamstring in early September, prior to St. John's 4-0 trip to Canada over Labor Day Weekend. Mason Jr. participated in low-impact weight training, conditioning exercises and physical therapy while recuperating until cleared by St. John's medical staff. After re-aggravating the hamstring over the weekend, orthopedist Answorth Allen, M.D., team doctor to the Red Storm and the New York Knicks of the NBA, re-examined Mason Jr. and recommended four to six more weeks of rehabilitation and strengthening exercises.

A season ago in 2008-09, after scoring six points in St. John's season-opening win over LIU (Nov. 14), Mason Jr. put forward a 24-point effort against Cornell (Nov. 17) and netted 12 points against Boston College (Nov. 18), shooting 44.4 percent from the field across the two latter contests as part of the NIT Season Tip-Off. It was announced on Nov. 21. that he would be forced to miss the rest of the season when a MRI revealed a torn peroneal tendon in his right foot, suffered during the B.C. game. John Kennedy, M.D., of the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan, performed the corrective surgery on Dec. 15, 2008. After months of rest, recuperation, physical therapy and strength and conditioning work, Mason Jr. was cleared to return to the court for offseason voluntary workouts in early June, before suffering the original hamstring injury in early September.

An All-BIG EAST Honorable Mention selection and a first team All-Met honoree by the Metropolitan Basketball Writers' Association (MBWA) as a junior in 2007-08, Mason Jr. averaged a team-best 14.0 points per game that season and scored at a 14.0 ppg clip across three contests before his injury three games into last year's campaign. He is currently ranked sixth among St. John's all-time 3-point shooters with 109 across his 80-game career, which includes making seven shots from long-distance against Louisville on Jan. 26, 2008, to cap back-to-back 29-point games.

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