Mas redshirts the 2016-2017 season

Cougar basketball starting forward Jordi Mas is red shirting for his junior year at MVNU.

Mas is healing from a knee injury that took place during the third game of the season against Northwest Ohio University. The severity of the injury removed Mas from the court for the 2016-17 season.

“I went to block a shot, and when I was landing on the floor, all my weight went to my right knee,” Mas said.

Mas recalls a significant height difference between him and the Northwest player guarding him. The difference caused the man to push against Mas’ knee rather than his hip while boxing out during a rebound.

This pressure, along with the unbalanced weight, caused the injury.

“In that moment, my knee opened and closed really fast. The only thing I heard was a quick ‘clack,’” he said.

Mas has a grade one tear in his MCL (medial collateral ligament, located on the inside of the knee), ACL (anterior cruciate ligament, located "inside" of the bones), and LCL (lateral collateral ligament, located on the opposite side of the MCL). Doctors also discovered tears to his medial (inside) and lateral (outside) meniscus.

Surgery was completed on Dec. 15 at the Knox County Community Hospital. Doctors repaired the torn ACL with a part of Mas’ hamstring, and cleaned up the meniscus tear.

“Everything went better than the doctor expected,” Mas said.

Mas is currently doing physical therapy at SportsPro where he is working on improving his mobility. He expects to make a full recovery and return next season.

Mas traveled from Parets del Vallès, Spain, to play basketball at Mount Vernon Nazarene University while studying business management.

As a freshman Mas played in all 32 games, starting in 21. He recorded his season high of 22 points in a 62-50 victory over Marian University.

During the 2015-16 season Mas averaged 9.3 points and 5.1 rebounds per game. He started 21 of his 30 sophomore games and dished out 30 assists for the season.

Mas credits a friend from home who encouraged him to play basketball at the collegiate level in the United States.

“I came and tried different universities in Ohio. One of them was MVNU,” said Mas. “I liked the campus, and the people here. I think that MVNU is a great university to grow up as a person, student, and your faith in God.”