UPDATED: Feb. 12, 2018 at 11:53 p.m.

One day during summer 2013, Annette Moyer got off the phone with a friend and thought: “X-rays? What X-rays?”

Her friend, whose son played AAU basketball with her son, Matthew, had asked what the doctor had said. But Annette hadn’t been to the doctor’s with Matthew, and she didn’t know why her friend was asking. Matthew had come out to the car after a tournament was over with an ice pack on his right wrist, but Annette had seen so many players with so many ice packs over the years she figured it wasn’t a big deal.

Now that she thought about it, though, it was odd Matthew had grabbed a few bags of frozen peas and went right upstairs to his room when they got home. Usually, he sat and talked for a little while. Annette learned Matthew had gone up for an alley-oop during the game and a defender had undercut him, and he had reached out his right hand to break the fall.

The next day, Annette asked Matthew about his swollen hand, but he told her it felt fine. When the swelling didn’t stop shortly after, though, Annette made an executive decision for the high school freshman. X-rays revealed a broken wrist.

“The team was more important to Matthew than Matthew’s health was important to Matthew,” Annette said.

Now, she explained, Moyer finds himself in a similar situation.

On Sunday, before the Wake Forest game, Moyer ruled himself out after consulting with his parents because of lingering pain from the high-ankle sprain sustained on Jan. 24 against Boston College. It’s unclear whether Moyer will be available on Wednesday at 9 p.m. for Syracuse’s (17-8, 6-6 Atlantic Coast) tip-off in the Carrier Dome with North Carolina State (16-9, 6-6). Part of the injury’s trickiness, Annette said, is that this is Moyer’s first high-ankle sprain.

Moyer could not be reached for comment. Annette declined to specify a timeline for Moyer’s return because she thought that was best-addressed by the SU training staff. There was no update on his condition Monday evening, SU Athletics said.

On the ACC teleconference earlier Monday afternoon, SU head coach Jim Boeheim said, “He’s obviously injured. … Haven’t seen him today.”

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Moyer practiced fully in contact drills on Monday and did not appear to be wearing anything to protect his ankle. Without Moyer, Syracuse has six players available who started this season with a scholarship and one of them, freshman center Bourama Sidibe, has also struggled to stay on the floor due to left-knee tendinitis.

The timing of Moyer’s decision to sit seemed to frustrate Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim, who noted in the postgame press conference that Moyer had practiced fully both of the two days prior and contributed against Louisville on Feb. 5 before sitting.

“He can’t jump really off one leg, but I had bad ankles, you can jump off two,” Boeheim said. “His father came in and told him not to play and I don’t play someone when they don’t want to play. He said he was about 60 percent, which, I’ll take that. That helps us.”

When asked about Boeheim’s comments, Annette said, “He’s the head coach, and we certainly respect that.”

Not playing against Wake Forest cut short the seemingly miraculous recovery Moyer made to play two minutes on Jan. 31 at Georgia Tech. In the week since the injury, he only missed one game. Then in Atlanta, Boeheim and Tyus Battle, Moyer’s roommate, lauded Moyer’s diligence in the training room to return in one week after they thought the injury might cost Moyer four to six weeks.

Annette heaped praise on the training staff — “They’re phenomenal, they’re incredible” —  for even rehabbing Moyer to the point where he could play. Moyer has visited head trainer Brad Pike and his staff a lot, Annette said, sometimes between classes. The recovery impressed her because she had seen the picture of Moyer’s ankle looking like a bruised plum that was taken Jan. 27, the day Moyer sat out the game at Pittsburgh.

Matthew Moyer’s foot on Jan. 27. Courtesy of Annette Moyer

Annette chalked up her son’s ability to play to a high pain tolerance. This summer, Annette said, Moyer returned home to have all four wisdom teeth pulled because she thought she would need to take care of him afterward. For the surgery, Moyer received anesthesia but stayed awake throughout and, after returning home, he stuffed his jaws with gauze and played basketball “for three hours.”

Ultimately, though, Annette and Fred Moyer, Moyer’s father, figured their son had really downplayed the ankle pain when he missed an open layup at Louisville that normally, Annette thought, he would’ve finished.

“That would’ve been a dunk,” she said. “All along, he’s been telling us that he’s in pain, but … we’re thinking that’s a part of the healing, because he’s like, ‘I’m good, I’m good.’ We’re like, ‘Are you sure?’ After that Louisville game, it’s like, he’s not OK.”

She realized the broken wrist situation was playing out again.

“Kids are going to (say they’re OK when they’re not) because they’re competitors,” she said. “They’re going to say whatever it’s going to take. Matthew knows (Syracuse is) short-handed right now, so he’s going to put his health secondary.”

Even after the win at UofL, Moyer assured his parents he felt fine. But this time, they pushed back. After a discussion, Moyer acquiesced and decided he probably should give himself more time to heal. By the time Fred left home in Ohio for Syracuse on Saturday morning, Annette said, Moyer had agreed to sit. That didn’t lessen Moyer’s desire to play.

“Matthew would play on (the ankle) for 40 minutes right now,” she said. “But what’s going to happen is, you keep pushing something like that and it’s going to get worse. It’s not going to get better, it’s got to heal.”

When Moyer is out, Boeheim has a shorter bench. His teammates have less leeway with fouls. Moyer himself isn’t doing what he wants to the most. For all of them, Moyer playing cures those ills. Syracuse wants Moyer to play just as much as he does.

“He’s going to do everything he can to get back out there,” Annette said.

CORRECTION: In a previous version of this post, Fred Moyer was misnamed. The Daily Orange regrets this error.

Published on February 12, 2018 at 11:11 pm

Contact Sam: sjfortie@syr.edu | @Sam4TR