Though he has not been able to contribute on the floor to Pitt's run towards NCAA Tournament contention, Will Jeffress is still every bit of an important piece to the Panthers.
Even while he continues to battle back from the thing which is keeping him out.
The Panthers forward is not far away from having a walking boot removed from his left foot, after he fractured his medial sesamoid in early September and had to have it removed with season-ending surgery on Dec. 1. The surgery was a setback for the junior, who was trying to rehab the injury under his own power for three months.
Originally thought of getting ready for Pitt's exhibition schedule before the season tipped off, the rehab period kept getting pushed back. As he continued to play on that foot, the pain increased. His deadline date of Dec. 1 hit, and Jeffress elected for the surgery.
I caught up with Jeffress at the Petersen Events Center on Friday to see how his rehab is going, and Jeffress shared details of the decision-making process to elect to have his surgery.
"As I continued to play on it, it started to hurt more and more, and then I started to try and avoid the pain, but then it got to a certain point where I started talking to my trainers and I was like, 'hey, I've got a problem,'" Jeffress told me.
"And, then after that it was like, 'stay in the boot, see if you heal up, and if not then we're going to have to end up probably having to get surgery.' I got a repeat MRI, and it just showed no changes. It's not like anything got worse (structurally). Nothing got better."
Jeffress will not play for Pitt this season, but he still is ever-present within Jeff Capel's locker room.
Jeffress has been a key piece over the last two seasons for the Panthers, having played in 16 games with four starts in the 2020-'21 season and by playing 31 games while starting 16 last season. He was thought to be a focal-point bench piece alongside Nike Sibande after logging 20.7 minutes per game the year prior.
But, that injury changed his course.
Jeffress was walking with the assistance of crutches after the surgery, and is at last able to put weight on his foot. He was unable to do much in the weeks following the surgery as he had to keep his foot elevated and do what was necessary to keep weight off of it.
He is still, as he said, "loving" the rehab process.
"It's a slow grind, but pretty much just attacking it every day," Jeffress said. "Trying to get my leg muscles back, calf atrophy. Same thing with my hamstrings, my (quadriceps), and then trying to get the range-of-motion back within my toes and things like that. I'm attacking it every day, I'm enjoying the process, and just trying to stay as positive as possible through it, through everything."
Anybody going through a physical injury will also have to battle with it mentally. Of course, he would rather in every ideal circumstance be on the floor and playing ball alongside his teammates, but he has taken a new perspective on the game and has remained positive about his approach to being out.
"I think the biggest reason I'm able to remain positive is the shift in my perspective of everything," he said. "I know even though things aren't going my way and I'm not healthy, I'm not out there on the court with my team, my team is having success and things like that. I know that if I was in their position I'd want people to be happy for me. I'd want anybody and everybody to cheer me on, too. And, so, just putting yourself in my shoes and then putting yourself in their shoes, I know that what they need most right now is a supportive teammate as much as possible. Somebody that's on the sidelines talking to them, keeping their head up, supplying energy, and just bringing everything to the table with what I have."
Capel has been more than candid at various points this season about the veteran leadership and the selflessness employed by the Panthers during this run.
Jeffress is no exception.
"I've felt for Will," Capel said this week. "It's been hard for him. ... Will's a very positive guy, he's a great teammate. But, this has been really hard for him. His impact has been as a really good teammate to the guys, but not a lot of stuff vocal, just because he's been focused on his stuff. There's been some setbacks and disappointments, but he's a great guy to have around all the time."
The "setbacks and disappointments" Capel is referring to, of course, were within the preseason and leading up to the decision to have surgery.
After a couple weeks post-operation, Capel asked Jeffress to come back to be around the team. Jeffress said Capel has turned to him for perspective both on the floor and from inside the locker room.
"He's talked to me a little bit about it," Jeffress said. "Sometimes he asks me some questions and things like that, and I try and supply the best feedback that I possibly can, and just try to understand the game from his perspective and all the players' perspective, too, has also taught me a lot about the game."
Jeffress has been playing basketball for, as he told me, "I don't even remember when I started." This is the first full season in which Jeffress will not compete for some time, which serves as an opportunity to reset his mindset around the game and pick up some things he otherwise might not have been able to gain clarity on while going through the typical grind of a season.
Consider it, as he says with perspective, a blessing in disguise.
"I feel like, personally, this is one of the best things that could've happened to me even though I didn't want it to go this way," Jeffress said. "I feel like it's something that's allowed me to step back and view the game in a different light. I've been so active within the game. Always, always playing and going to the next step or the next camp or the next spot or the next game. I've never really had a chance to stop and look at it from an outsider's perspective. It's helped me a lot, not only with studying the games and seeing certain reads and understanding why some coaches do the things that they do, (but) understanding the game as a whole.
"It's just started to all flow for me, and, especially when you take a step back and I'm on the sidelines now and I know I'm not going to get in and I'm not going to go play. Or, we have 20,000 people around us in (North Carolina's) gym, and I just realize it's just basketball. That's the best part, that's probably the best thing that's happened to me in sitting out. Something you love to do, and something you enjoy to play, and something that you're good at. When you step out there onto the court you've got to understand it's just basketball. There's nothing that you need to rush, there's nothing that you need to feel. It's just, go out there and play. That's probably the best thing that I've learned. Knowing that, that has boosted my mental, it has boosted my confidence, it has boosted everything dramatically.
"As much as I hate this left foot right now, I love it, too."
