Naz Long is definitely not a morning person.
Tomorrow, he’ll have to be.
Iowa State’s sharpshooting junior guard confirmed to CycloneFanatic.com he will undergo surgery to repair a torn labrum in his left hip on Wednesday — and the procedure will be done bright and early, beginning at 5:30 a.m.
“I’ve got my brother (Elijah) up here to wake me up for an extra alarm clock so I’ll be fine,” Long said.
Iowa State announced the news in a late-night press release. Dr. Bryan Warme will perform the surgery at Mary Greeley Hospital in Ames, according to the release. Long said he expects to be good as new for his senior season.
“Definitely can come back 100 percent from it,” said Long, who drained a team-best 77 3-pointers last season while averaging 10.1 points per game for Coach Fred Hoiberg‘s Cyclones. “I’m going to rehab for six months and that’s plenty of time to get back, but it’s definitely something that I can come back 100 percent from.”
Long said he began noticing pain and tightness off and on last season. Unsure what it was, he played through it, knowing he’d seek full answers to what ails him in the offseason.
“Kind of the game versus Kansas and Texas Tech, around that time,” Long said in trying to pinpoint when he began experiencing the issues. “And then West Virginia, I just started feeling some real pains. I thought it was like a hip pointer, so I was stretching and doing the right stuff and it was kind of going away, coming back, going away. Throughout the season, especially the second part of the season, I was just feeling weird, like there was extra tightness and I couldn’t move right. I had to take longer to warm up and all that. So we just decided after the season I would get X-rays. Did that and it came up and now I’ve got to get surgery.”
Long also said the surgery would include some reshaping of his hip bone.
“Basically, the bone that goes into the socket is irregular,” he said. “It happened over time and, yeah, they’ve got to do that and it’s like a six-month process.”
So no YMCA Capital City League ball — and that bums Long out a bit.
“That’s what sucks,” he said, tongue in cheek. “I was looking forward to beating Sherron Dorsey-Walker’s (single-game scoring) record.”
Joking aside, the former boxer reiterated his plan to be back at full strength when the Cyclones begin the 2015-16 season in November.
“Just going to take it head on,” Long said. “Just knock it out, right?”
