Purdue's Robbie Hummel cleared to return to action

Oct 04, 2010

PURDUE'S ROBBIE HUMMEL CLEARED TO RETURN TO ACTION

Last week, Purdue's basketball team got some good news when Robbie Hummel announced he had been cleared to return to the court.

Hummel, a senior, has spent the last several months recovering from a torn ACL that he suffered in February during a game against Minnesota.

"I'm jumping better, I'm able to dunk again, and I'm moving pretty good," Hummel said during a speech to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Porter County in Indiana, according to The Post Tribune.

Hummel had surgery on his knee on March 8 and was still limited in what he could do when the team's individual workouts began in late August.

"I can do basically whatever I want," Hummel said.(play five-on-five), but I haven't done it yet. I'm thinking it's probably going to be next week. A few days ago, when (Shelbourne) said, 'You're cleared, I give you the OK to play,' that doesn't mean go out there and play open gym tomorrow. I think that means start playing some one-on-ones, two-on-twos, three-on-threes, and get comfortable with it. Because right now it still feels almost foreign to be running and moving around because I haven't done it in so long. I have to get my feet back under me. But I feel good where I'm at."

The Post-Tribune also reports that Hummel that since he could only lift weights for a time during his recovery, he had added 10-15 pounds of muscle to his 230-pound frame.

Now, he hopes that all the work during the offseason will pay off with a trip to the Final Four for a Boilermakers team that is one of the nation's most talented.

"It's our last go-around," he said.(Moore) and JaJuan (Johnson) realize that. We want to do something special, we want to do it together. That's why those guys decided to come back (after declaring for the NBA Draft but not hiring an agent)."

Watch out, Big Ten.

Tim Gardner Follow Tim on Twitter at [@]TimGardnerUSAT

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