Kansas’ Devonte’ Graham progresses to ‘light’ running and cutting in rehab from toe injury

Devonte’ Graham’s recovery from a sprained right toe will continue this week with some light running and some light cutting, Kansas men’s basketball coach Bill Self said on Monday afternoon.

Graham, a freshman point guard, has been out since Dec. 10 because of “turf toe,” an injury suffered in a victory at Georgetown. To this point, Graham’s rehab has mostly been limited to pool workouts, but Self is hopeful that Graham could return to the practice floor for certain situations later this week.

“This has just started,” Self said of the running and cutting. “But we’re going to continue that and I’m hopeful we can put him in some type of practice situation later on this week.”

Once Graham returns to practice, Self estimated that Graham could need at least a week before being ready to play limited minutes in a game.

“He’s in terrible shape obviously,” Self said. “But I think he can get his shape back and he can get back where he can play spot minutes in a week I would think, for sure.

“But we are not going to put him out there too early. We are going to make sure that he’s going good and has total confidence in it, (so) I don’t know when that will be. He’s progressed nicely in the last week, much better than what we had anticipated.”

Graham was averaging 5.9 points in 14.9 minutes per game before his injury. With Graham out — and Kansas lacking a true backup point guard — sophomore Frank Mason has taken on a heavy minutes load, playing 33.3 minutes per game through 13 games.

In the days after the injury, Self said a medical redshirt was a possibility if Graham was slow to recover. At the moment, that prospect doesn’t appear likely, but Self hasn’t completely ruled it out.

“(He) hasn’t done anything full speed, anything like that,” Self said. “If he can’t be 100 percent, then, yeah, we’ll shut him down. But we’ll make sure he is close to 100 percent before we put him back out there.”

This story was originally published January 5, 2015 at 3:19 PM with the headline "Kansas’ Devonte’ Graham progresses to ‘light’ running and cutting in rehab from toe injury."