Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Maryland guard Seth Allen was almost forced to quit basketball after bike crash

Seth Allen

Maryland freshman Seth Allen scored 16 points in the Terrapins’ 83-81 upset of No. 2 Duke on Feb. 16. Looking back, though, that game very well could have never happened for the Virginia native.

Allen, who is averaging 7.6 points and 2.4 assists per game in his first season in College Park, was involved in a gruesome bicycle accident in 2007 that left him with two plates and 24 screws in his left elbow. According to a story in Tuesday’s Baltimore Sun, Allen hit a rough patch on his 10-speed bike and lost control. He tried to brace him self for the fall and is now left with a seven-inch scar after the surgery.

“My handlebars turned and my arm got caught up, and it snapped my arm and broke it,” Allen told the paper. “And then I fell on it, and the thing that holds the elbow together shattered.”

“The doctor said his elbow had to be pieced back together like a jigsaw puzzle, and they didn’t think he would have full use of his arm,” Allen’s mother, Deborah, said. “The physical therapist would come in three to five times a day and move his arm so that scar tissue would not move in, and he would just scream. I think that was the hardest thing we ever went through.”

Now having made a full recovery, Allen is an integral part of Maryland’s rotation with just under 22 minutes per game. His Terrapins are fighting an uphill battle to make the NCAA tournament and must get a road win Wednesday over Georgia Tech to keep their hopes alive.

For a preview of Georgia Tech-Maryland from CSNWashington.com, click here.

Daniel Martin is a writer and editor at JohnnyJungle.com, covering St. John’s. You can find him on Twitter:@DanielJMartin_