The Clemson men’s basketball team won a tough one on the road yesterday, beating Florida State 82-81 on a layup-and-1 by Chase Hunter with 4.5 seconds left. It was Hunter’s first game back after missing the last three with an ankle injury. The Tigers are 18-4, ranked in the top 25, and alone atop the ACC at 10-1.
One Clemson contributor who didn’t play in yesterday’s win was sixth-year senior starter Brevin Galloway. The guard, second on the team in assists (55) and fourth in scoring (10.6 ppg), is out indefinitely. Coach Brad Brownell said he didn’t travel with the team to Tallahassee but had no update on when he’ll be back. That makes sense, because Galloway's balls and nutsack recently exploded.
That may not be the scientific term for the injury, which was remedied via “emergency testicular torsion surgery” last week. But it’s what Galloway said happened to him.
Brownell had no comment on the specifics of the injury. It seems that by “exploded” Galloway does not mean that his balls literally went kaboom like a Bob-omb in Super Mario Bros. 2. It seems more likely that he suffered a similar injury to the one described in a recent Clinical Medicine Insights: Case Reports paper with the delightful title of “Testicular Rupture: The Other Nutcracker Syndrome” (note: there are photos of messed-up balls at this link).
We present a 20 year old active duty male with no past medical or surgical history who presented to the emergency department with increasing testicular pain of 3 days duration. The pain initiated following a collision during a basketball game 3 days prior to presentation. At the time of the accident, he felt a sharp, transient pain in the groin. Over the course of the next 72 hours his pain continued to worsen, prompting presentation to the emergency department for evaluation. His physical examination was notable for mild tenderness and significant swelling of the left testicle with visible ecchymosis of the left hemiscrotum.
Fortunately, the “active duty male” with significant testicle swelling in this example was perfectly fine in a followup examination three weeks later. “Testicular rupture is a rare occurrence which warrants rapid diagnosis and prompt surgical attention,” the paper concludes.
If this is indeed what Galloway suffered, he should be back to action in a few weeks. He did say, with evident satisfaction, that his balls had already returned to normal size. Soon he’ll get back to being more concerned with basketballs.
[Via CBS Sports]
