UALR forward shoulders pain

It was a familiar feeling, and it wasn’t good.

UALR sophomore forward Will Neighbour said he felt something snap when he hit the floor in the final seconds of UALR’S 65-59 victory over Denver on Dec. 31.

Neighbour, 6-10, was helped off the court at Magness Arena by UALR trainer Michael Switlik, passing Coach Steve Shields and the UALR bench, giving all a clear view of a shoulder that was no longer connected to its socket.

“You’re thinking ‘Oh, no,’ ” recalled Shields, when Neighbour and Switlik passed by.

Neighbour flew back to Little Rock and underwent a magnetic resonance imaging, where what he already knew was confirmed: He had a tear in the labrum in his right shoulder and to his right biceps.

“I knew exactly how it felt,” Neighbour said. “I was like ‘Damn, that’s just like the other one.’ ”

The torn labrum and bicep were almost identical — doctors told him the only difference was what side the tears were on — to the injury he suffered 1 ⁄ years earlier at thenning of his sophomore season at Daytona (Fla.) State College.

Neighbour went right into surgery after that injury, which occurred in practice when a teammate came from behind to slap a ball he was holding above his head, and he was just returning to full strength when he arrived at UALR last summer.

But considering his latest injury came two games into the Sun Belt Conference schedule, immediate surgery would have taken the rest of his season and it was too late to obtain another medical redshirt. And considering how long he had been waiting to play at UALR — Neighbour originally signed in April 2009 but was declared academically ineligible — he wasn’t interested in stalling any longer.

“I said ‘You know, I’m not going to sit out the rest of the year,’ ” Neighbour said. “‘I’ll put the brace on it, do the best I can.’ ”

Neighbour missed the Jan. 3 loss at Kentucky and a Jan. 7 home victory over Florida Atlantic but returned for a Jan. 12 victory at Louisana-monroe.

He’s played in 13 games since choosing rehab over surgery, and whenever he plays it’s only after Switlik helps him pull on a bulky, black brace called “The Sully” that helps keep his shoulder in place since his labrum, torn in two spots, can’t.

Each day before joining his teammates for practice he first stops by to see Switlik in the training room underneath the south stands at the Jack Stephens Center to have the brace put on and be put through a series of strengthening exercises.

The exercises, about an hour each day plus light weight training, is what Neighbour signed up for as soon as he decided to put off surgery, which he’ll undergo about a week after whenever UALR’S season ends.

“I’ve always been an all-ornothing guy,” Switlik said. “You either go or you don’t.”

The exercises are designed to get him through this season, but also are an attempt to redirect a developmental issue that Switlik said could have caused the two labrum tears in the first place.

Switlik said the way in which Neighbour’s injuries occurred, during contact common in basketball games, suggest the tear could have been building over time. Part of that, Switlik said, has to do with Neighbour’s winging scapula, a condition in which the shoulder blade portrudes from a person’s back at an odd angle, which can cause a disruption in the shoulder.

“This is helping him now get through practices and games,” Switlik said. “But at the same time, too, it’ll benefit him on the back end.”

It’s not enough to quell the pain every day, though.

Neighbour said there are times when his shoulder will catch the tear in his labrum and the only thing he wants to do is keep his arm bent at the elbow and up against his stomach.

“The pain is pretty horrible when that happens,” he said.

Most of what Neighbour does on the court, layups, box outs and rebounding, he does while leading with his left arm, though he still shoots with his right.

“He’s had a great mental approach to get back to the floor,” Shields said. “His mind-set to where he got back as quickly as he got back was a credit to his mental approach.”

Neighbour isn’t back to where he was in December, though.

That game against Denver was the last in a string of his three best consecutive games of the season. He averaged 18.3 points in that stretch and 8.0 rebounds and was named Sun Belt player of the week.