TeMarcus Blanton says recovery going well after hip injury

He’s still not playing.

But he thinks he’ll be able to very soon.

“I feel like I’m moving ahead,” South Carolina redshirt freshman TeMarcus Blanton said last week. “I feel really well.”

Blanton, one of four recruits in Frank Martin’s third recruiting class, suffered a hip injury during preseason camp last season and didn’t play as a true freshman. The injury, compared by doctors to the one that ended Bo Jackson’s two-sport career, was treated as an unknown.

USC’s medical staff can’t remember when an injury such as Blanton’s has happened to a basketball player, and thus didn’t have a plan to treat it. But they repaired it, then took each step in recovery.

Blanton feels great. Trainers and doctors say the muscles around his hip are strong, and the blood flow is normal. He’s been working individually in workouts, even dunking on a side goal, but hasn’t been cleared for one-on-one, full-contact basketball yet.

“TeMarcus continues to progress,” Martin said last week. “We’re just hoping his body continues to respond the way it has. Our trainer feels comfortable that if we were in-season, he could do it. But we’re trying to hold him off until the school year in August.”

This story was originally published July 28, 2015 at 10:45 PM with the headline "TeMarcus Blanton says recovery going well after hip injury."