Printy suffers torn ACL, will miss remainder of the season

IOWA CITY -- The Iowa Hawkeyes' late push for a possible NCAA women's basketball tournament berth will go on without their top scorer.

Jaime Printy suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee at the end of Thursday's overtime win at Wisconsin.

An MRI confirmed the diagnosis Friday. She will miss the remainder of the season.

“It's tough news to take,” Printy said Friday.  “It feels like our team is really hitting its stride right now and it's going to be really hard to watch the rest of the season from the bench.

"But I'm ready to help the team in any way I can from the sidelines and am looking forward to watching my teammates continue to play well.

Iowa is 13-10 overall (5-5 in the Big Ten) heading into Sunday's game at Indiana.

A junior guard from Marion, Printy suffered her first ACL tear as a sophomore at Linn-Mar High School in December 2006.

She suffered Thursday's injury with less than a half-minute left in overtime, when she was going up for a rebound.

“We are extremely disappointed to lose Jaime for the rest of the season,” Iowa Coach Lisa Bluder said. “It's very unfortunate that she has to go through another ACL injury. Jaime is one of the elite players in our conference, and it's tough to see this type of injury happen to such a great individual.

“Jaime has a competitive spirit that other players feed off of, and we will miss that.”

Printy ranks 10th on Iowa's career scoring chart with 1,409 points and ranks 12th nationally this season in free throw percentage (.888). She was on pace to challenge Cindy Haugejorde's record of 2,059 points.

She had started every game of her career -- a string of 88 straight games.

Theairra Taylor and Melissa Dixon are the top candidates to join Morgan Johnson, Kamille Wahlin, Kelly Krei and Samantha Logic.

Printy will have surgery within the next two weeks.

“After going through rehab once before in high school, I know a little bit of what to expect (in rehabilitation),” Printy said. “After surgery, I'm going to put all my focus on getting back to 100 percent. I'm already looking forward to stepping back on the court (next season).”