This forward tore her ACL. Mizzou women’s basketball is better because of it

This is a story about fortunate timing, so let’s get the unfortunate part out of the way.

No one wants to tear an anterior cruciate ligament. When Missouri forward Jordan Frericks tore the one in her right knee before last season, it was her first serious injury.

“She was devastated,” her father, Jay Frericks, said.

But his daughter, MU coach Robin Pingeton said, is strong and mature, always able to find a silver lining. And it wasn’t hard to do so here. Soon after the injury, Frericks sat in a training room with a few teammates. For the first time, she mentioned that she would get to play the following season.

Star guard Sophie Cunningham would be a year better. Kansas transfer Lauren Aldridge would be playing for the Tigers.

“Everybody’s face in there kind of lit up,” Aldridge said. “ … Oh man, this could get really exciting.”

Missouri players often say this is the most talented team Pingeton has coached, and Frericks is an important reason why the Tigers should host the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament as one of the country’s top 16 teams. She is averaging 12.2 points and 7.6 rebounds, almost identical numbers to her junior season, when the Associated Press selected her as All-SEC honorable mention for the second time.

So, one more time. Unfortunate circumstances. Good timing.

“I would never wish an injury upon anyone, but it’s nice that she kind of did get injured because we’re having a heck of a year,” Cunningham said. “She’s strong as ever and doing great. She’s playing the best basketball yet. I’m really happy she’s still with us.”

The hesitancy that sometimes comes with returning from a serious injury went away by October, when Frericks took hard hit during a preseason practice, picked herself up off the floor and was mad a teammate had fouled her.

“I found myself exhaling,” said senior forward Kayla Michael, one of Frericks’ close friends.

Pingeton said at the preseason SEC Tipoff event that Frericks was playing at “95 percent” as the season neared. The coach figured Frericks still needed to adjust to the timing of an actual game, but Frericks proved her wrong.

Frericks, who plays near the basket on offense, began the season by scoring a combined 73 points in Mizzou’s first three games. Her production dipped during the rest of the nonconference schedule, when she often only had to play about 20 minutes. Now her scoring has picked up again.

Over Missouri’s last five games, Frericks has averaged 16.6 points on 61.8 percent shooting. Pingeton is hoping Frericks can make her first career three-pointer on Thursday, when the Tigers play host to Vanderbilt for senior night.

“She’s at the peak of her game right now,” Pingeton said. “She’s playing so strong, so explosive, so confident.”

Frericks and her teammates are doing what Pingeton envisioned when the coach was in a hospital room with Frericks’ parents.

“Not to be selfish,” Jay Frericks recalled Pingeton saying, “but this is the year I really want Jordan.”

Cunningham is a potential All-American, and though she has tried to become more of a leader this season, she is still a joker who believes she plays better when she is loose.

Frericks is the most detail-obsessed Tiger, Aldridge said. She keeps her teammates focused.

“I think I’m a perfectionist. Jordan Frericks is on a whole other level,” said Aldridge, who is in her first year of law school. “She does everything to a T. She does it perfectly. She does it flawlessly. Anything less than that is devastating to her.”

So even when Frericks had this season to look forward to, that year of sitting out was hard.

All of the basketball she had to watch happen in front of her. All of the things she wished she could have been doing right then, rather than in a year.

Aldridge, redshirting last season because of NCAA transfer rules, said she and Frericks tried to distract themselves from the depression of not playing by coming up with celebrations to do after big plays. When they weren’t doing that, they were “just dreaming of things” to come, Frericks said.

The Tigers have a chance to make the program’s first Sweet 16 since 2000. After Missouri’s win over powerhouse Tennessee last weekend, Frericks and her parents went to a Chili’s, one of the few places where Jay Frericks can park the mobile home he sometimes drives to Columbia from western Illinois. Inside the restaurant, the family started getting emotional while thinking about the victory and Frericks’ final season.

Frericks had never beaten the Volunteers prior to Missouri’s win on Sunday. This extra season had given her another chance.

This story was originally published February 21, 2018 at 7:04 PM with the headline "This forward tore her ACL. Mizzou women’s basketball is better because of it."