AUBURN, Ala. – If you've seen Anfernee McLemore in the gym this fall, you would have no idea that he's the same player that broke his leg just eight months ago. He's running and jumping like he used to, and if you ask him, he's back to 100 percent.
The memory of the injury is still there, though. It's still fresh in his mind.
Auburn fell behind early at South Carolina last February, and McLemore remembers asking the coaching staff toward the end of the first half if he could come back in the game for one last rotation before the break. It was shortly after he returned that he went to grab a long rebound and came down on one of his teammates. Immediately, he felt the bone break. And when he looked down, his foot was turned the wrong way.
"It all happened fast," McLemore said. "That's about the only thing I remember from the game. I'm just on the ground, and I'm screaming out – not from the pain but just from the shock of what happened. When I saw it, I knew immediately that it was going to be over for the season. That was so much to take in at once that my only reaction was to scream."
Reliving that day and that moment isn't easy for the 6-foot-7, 220-pound junior. It's a day those close to him probably want to forget. But McLemore hangs on to it by choice because it's the motivation that's been driving him every day the last eight months.
"Coming back from it so fast, I feel like I have to come back with a purpose," he said. "I can't come back just to be complacent or just to play cautiously. If I come back, I have to come back with 110 percent effort, come back better than I was before. I don't want to be the guy that comes back and kind of falls off.
"People may have counted me out because I broke my leg eight months ago, but I want to show that I'm not the person that broke my leg. I'm the same player I was."
Admittedly, there was a time during his rehab that McLemore didn't know if he'd play at all this coming season. He started off with a lot of band work and towel rotations, trying to regain mobility in his ankle. Then he began running on the anti-gravity treadmill, adding more of his body weight each time he ran. By mid-July, he was back on the court jumping again.
But there were moments along the way where the progress felt slow or the pain got to be too much. And then right round the time he was supposed to be cleared, he had doubts as to whether or not he should be practicing because of the pain and the swelling.
It was during those times that McLemore used his teammates to push through.
"I just wanted to get back to support the team," he said. "We didn't know if Austin [Wiley] was going to come back. We didn't know if we were going to get a new center. In the back of my head, I knew that Horace [Spencer] would have to have somebody help him out a little bit, so I wanted to do my part for the team.
"If I could get back, then I would get back."
So McLemore fought through the pain. He overcame his doubts. And now, eight months later, he's back and ready to play again – just in time for the start of the season.
His head coach, Bruce Pearl, believes that there may still be some hurdles for him to overcome mentally, which is to be expected after that type of horrific injury. But Pearl knows as well as anybody how much better this Auburn team is with McLemore on the court than without him.
"It's great to have him back," the fifth-year coach said. "He is such a dynamic player. He has impact all over the floor. Offensively, he can finish around the rim. He stretches the defense with his three ball. Defensively, he protects the rim and is a quick defender. We were just a ton better with him than we were without him last year."
Since the injury occurred, it has been McLemore's mission to return as the same player. He didn't want to lose a step or be limited by what happened to him.
But truth be told, McLemore is not the same player. Anybody who was at Auburn's pro day last month could see that. It's not that he lost a step. He was still the human pogo stick fans remember from last year, blocking shots and throwing down alley-oops from teammates. It's more so that he's improved in other areas of his game – his shooting, in particular.
"I think since the injury it has allowed me to work on my shot a lot more," McLemore said. "Because in my recovery, I couldn't do a lot of dunks. I would just do form shooting where I would sit in a chair and work on my releases and things like that."
That has been evident during the practice the last two months as McLemore has shown the ability to step out and knock down a shot from long range with ease.
"It lets us go five out," Pearl said. "I've always been a four-out guy, but now when you have Anfernee out there, we can be five out. You put five shooters out there – whatever you run, it's hard to guard. It spreads the floor. He's a good three-point shooter. He's worked on his shot fake, his ability to put the ball on the floor and get to the rim a little. He's a real dimension."
The next chapter to McLemore's journey begins Friday night when Auburn hosts Lincoln Memorial in an exhibition game. It will be his first game back.
"Right now, it's still surreal," McLemore said during a recent interview. "I think when I actually put the jersey on and get back on the floor, then I'll realize that I'm actually out here, that I'm actually playing again. I broke my leg eight months ago, and I'm actually playing again right now."
Greg Ostendorf is a Senior Writer for AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: Follow @greg_ostendorf
