bluesooner17
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NORMAN — When Kim Manning got in her black Chevy Equinox in Ankeny, Iowa, to begin the familiar eight-hour drive to Norman on Friday, she wondered if it would be the last time she’d make the journey under these circumstances.
As the mother of redshirt senior guard Maddie Manning, Kim has made the trip frequently over the last five years.
She made trips to help her daughter move in before classes and others to help her move out when the year was over. Once, she made the drive through a blizzard when Maddie needed a little extra help in the aftermath of her first ACL tear.
But like the journey she began last week, the final destination of many trips was the Lloyd Noble Center where she watched Maddie navigate the roller coaster of her collegiate basketball career.
Monday night, there’s a chance that Kim could be arriving at the Lloyd Noble Center to watch her daughter play for the final time on the court she’s called home for so many years.
Though Kim, along with her parents and niece, will be in the crowd for No. 16-ranked Oklahoma’s regular season finale against No. 4 Baylor, they won’t step out on the court for the postgame senior night pageantry.
Maddie is listed as a redshirt senior, but she has the possibility of playing for another year if the NCAA grants her a medical hardship waiver for a sixth season of eligibility following ACL tears in consecutive seasons.
“The decision is truly hers,” Kim said. “I personally hope she stays another year because I’m not ready to not do this anymore.”
For Maddie, sticking around for one last hurrah isn’t a foregone conclusion. She’s already completed her undergraduate degree and is one class away from putting the finishing touches on her Master’s degree in Intercollegiate Athletic Administration.
If Maddie left now, she’d go out following a solid season, averaging 12.7 points, 5.5 rebounds and 1.8 steals per game.
But for everything she’s already done, there’s still more that she wants to accomplish. There’s winning a Big 12 championship and making a deep run in the NCAA Tournament. Those things could still be accomplished this season, but then she’d always think about the what-ifs that an additional year could bring.
That’s why, with one game left in the regular season, Maddie hasn’t made a definite decision about her future.
“I’m starting to have those conversations with my coaches, so I should probably know soon,” she said before the Sooners beat TCU on Saturday night.
A couple weeks ago, she briefly worried the decision might have been taken out of her hands when she collapsed on the court in Stillwater, an off-the-ball collision with teammate Chelsea Dungee forcing her knee to buckle and give away.
It was a nauseating feeling, one that sent Maddie back to the two times she felt a pop in her knee during her freshman and redshirt freshman years that resulted in her missing two seasons.
“I went negative right away, just with my history with my knees,” she said. “I felt like something wasn’t right, and obviously I thought the worst because that’s what it’s been every time I’ve felt something go wrong.”
Instead, the team doctors came back with a rather positive diagnosis: sprained MCL, out for a couple weeks.
“I didn’t want to see her go through surgery again,” Kim said. “Just the healing time and rehab time, not only physically, but mentally.
“I think it would’ve forced her to make some decisions she wasn’t ready to make about her future.”
Maddie ended up missing just three games through the final stretch of the season and returned against Kansas State to score seven points and dish out four assists in 31 minutes.
Entering Monday night’s game, Maddie already knows what she wants to do next, even if she doesn’t know when it will happen. Whenever she wraps up her playing career, she’ll trade her spot on the court in for a place on the sideline as a coach. It’s a dream that came in focus as she sat next to coach Sherri Coale for her entire redshirt freshman season following her second ACL tear.
“When she was injured, (she) was able to view the game differently and see the adjustments that you make during the game and the conversations that happen,” Coale said. “I think she realized she knew a lot more than she thought she did and that she could be really, really good at it because she was seeing the same things that we were seeing.”
As tough is it is for Maddie to pick a path in life, it’s going to be equally difficult for Kim to come to terms with the decision — especially if it means watching her daughter leave a place and a coaching staff that helped her grow and mature.
“You think about what Maddie’s been through with the two ACL surgeries and not playing basketball for 720 days and never once did she ever call and say, ‘I think I need to come home’ or ‘I want to come home,’” Kim said. “She never talked about quitting or anything. I’d hate to see her hang up her basketball shoes before she’s had her full four years to play myself because of all that.”
But no matter what Maddie chooses, Kim will be right there to hop in the car for the next journey — whether it’s another year of eight-hour drives to Norman or a trip to another destination to move her daughter into the next phase of her life.
As the mother of redshirt senior guard Maddie Manning, Kim has made the trip frequently over the last five years.
She made trips to help her daughter move in before classes and others to help her move out when the year was over. Once, she made the drive through a blizzard when Maddie needed a little extra help in the aftermath of her first ACL tear.
But like the journey she began last week, the final destination of many trips was the Lloyd Noble Center where she watched Maddie navigate the roller coaster of her collegiate basketball career.
Monday night, there’s a chance that Kim could be arriving at the Lloyd Noble Center to watch her daughter play for the final time on the court she’s called home for so many years.
Though Kim, along with her parents and niece, will be in the crowd for No. 16-ranked Oklahoma’s regular season finale against No. 4 Baylor, they won’t step out on the court for the postgame senior night pageantry.
Maddie is listed as a redshirt senior, but she has the possibility of playing for another year if the NCAA grants her a medical hardship waiver for a sixth season of eligibility following ACL tears in consecutive seasons.
“The decision is truly hers,” Kim said. “I personally hope she stays another year because I’m not ready to not do this anymore.”
For Maddie, sticking around for one last hurrah isn’t a foregone conclusion. She’s already completed her undergraduate degree and is one class away from putting the finishing touches on her Master’s degree in Intercollegiate Athletic Administration.
If Maddie left now, she’d go out following a solid season, averaging 12.7 points, 5.5 rebounds and 1.8 steals per game.
But for everything she’s already done, there’s still more that she wants to accomplish. There’s winning a Big 12 championship and making a deep run in the NCAA Tournament. Those things could still be accomplished this season, but then she’d always think about the what-ifs that an additional year could bring.
That’s why, with one game left in the regular season, Maddie hasn’t made a definite decision about her future.
“I’m starting to have those conversations with my coaches, so I should probably know soon,” she said before the Sooners beat TCU on Saturday night.
A couple weeks ago, she briefly worried the decision might have been taken out of her hands when she collapsed on the court in Stillwater, an off-the-ball collision with teammate Chelsea Dungee forcing her knee to buckle and give away.
It was a nauseating feeling, one that sent Maddie back to the two times she felt a pop in her knee during her freshman and redshirt freshman years that resulted in her missing two seasons.
“I went negative right away, just with my history with my knees,” she said. “I felt like something wasn’t right, and obviously I thought the worst because that’s what it’s been every time I’ve felt something go wrong.”
Instead, the team doctors came back with a rather positive diagnosis: sprained MCL, out for a couple weeks.
“I didn’t want to see her go through surgery again,” Kim said. “Just the healing time and rehab time, not only physically, but mentally.
“I think it would’ve forced her to make some decisions she wasn’t ready to make about her future.”
Maddie ended up missing just three games through the final stretch of the season and returned against Kansas State to score seven points and dish out four assists in 31 minutes.
Entering Monday night’s game, Maddie already knows what she wants to do next, even if she doesn’t know when it will happen. Whenever she wraps up her playing career, she’ll trade her spot on the court in for a place on the sideline as a coach. It’s a dream that came in focus as she sat next to coach Sherri Coale for her entire redshirt freshman season following her second ACL tear.
“When she was injured, (she) was able to view the game differently and see the adjustments that you make during the game and the conversations that happen,” Coale said. “I think she realized she knew a lot more than she thought she did and that she could be really, really good at it because she was seeing the same things that we were seeing.”
As tough is it is for Maddie to pick a path in life, it’s going to be equally difficult for Kim to come to terms with the decision — especially if it means watching her daughter leave a place and a coaching staff that helped her grow and mature.
“You think about what Maddie’s been through with the two ACL surgeries and not playing basketball for 720 days and never once did she ever call and say, ‘I think I need to come home’ or ‘I want to come home,’” Kim said. “She never talked about quitting or anything. I’d hate to see her hang up her basketball shoes before she’s had her full four years to play myself because of all that.”
But no matter what Maddie chooses, Kim will be right there to hop in the car for the next journey — whether it’s another year of eight-hour drives to Norman or a trip to another destination to move her daughter into the next phase of her life.