Armour: Concussed player lucky, and it has nothing to do with making shot

Proud as Trace Dimeff is of his how’d-he-do-that? basket, he hopes no other player will duplicate it.

You may not know Dimeff’s name, but you’ve probably seen the video of him making a three-pointer despite having just suffered an obvious concussion. Featured by The Big Lead, Bleacher Report and SB Nation, among others, it’s been liked and retweeted more than 25,000 times on Dimeff’s Twitter page alone.

“Now, knowing I’m OK, it’s kind of funny,” Dimeff told Paste BN Sports. “But it was scary seeing myself like that. I didn’t think I looked like that on the court when it was happening. At all.”

With Central Arizona trailing 66-61 and 15 seconds left in overtime Saturday, there was a scramble for a loose ball at the free throw line. Dimeff dove for the ball and collided with another player’s knee, his right jaw taking a direct hit.

On the video, Dimeff is seen clutching his head as he writhes in pain. He’s still on the floor when his teammates quickly regain possession at the other end.

“Next thing I know, they’re coming down toward me. I hear the entire bench yelling at me, `Get up Trace! Get up!’” Dimeff recalled.

Dimeff was having a huge game that night — he would finish with 27 points, seven rebounds, six assists, five steals and two blocks. So staggering and stumbling, his right arm dragging, he makes his way to the left corner.

A teammate spots him and passes him the ball. Going “purely off muscle memory,” Dimeff slowly puts up a three and then tumbles backward.

“I didn’t see ball go in. I was already falling down,” he said.

Dimeff lurches upright as play continues, but he can’t even stand up straight. Bent at the waist and leaning to his right, he wobbles forward, taking about a half-dozen steps before falling to his hands and knees.

“I tried to get up and run back on defense,” he said. “It wasn’t really working. I was stumbling and the right side of my body felt 10 times heavier. That’s when I knew what was wrong.”

Only then, some 20 seconds after Dimeff got hit, did the whistle mercifully sound.

Diagnosed with a concussion, Dimeff missed Central Arizona’s game Tuesday because he hadn’t cleared the return-to-play protocol.

Asked if someone should have intervened earlier, Dimeff said his coaches tried. An assistant coach was pointing at the sophomore guard and yelling at referees to stop the game, Dimeff said.

It wasn’t as if the referees didn’t see Dimeff. Watch the video again, and you’ll notice there’s a referee no more than 4 or 5 feet away from the time Dimeff gets hurt to when the whistle blows.

When he first goes down, in fact, a referee stays with him as play goes to the other end of the floor.

“The refs definitely should have blown the whistle,” Dimeff said.

Paste BN Sports tried to contact Ed Yeager, president of the Arizona Community College Athletic Conference, by both phone and email, but got no response. Central Arizona coach Tramaine Aaron didn’t return a phone call seeking comment.

In a statement to Phoenix’s 12 News, Central Arizona athletic director Chuck Schnoor said the school “adheres to the rules and protocols set forth by the ACCAC Constitution and By-Laws for both health and safety of athletes and rules of the game, including game stoppage and injury management.”

Dimeff’s injury came a day before St. Louis Rams quarterback Case Keenum was left in the game despite an obvious concussion. While Dimeff didn’t post the video of his shot to spark a conversation — he posted the video because he thought his friends and teammates would enjoy it — he understands why it has.

“You have to think about it a little bit because of personal safety. In the long run, big picture, it’s more than one game,” Dimeff said.

“It could have caused long-term damage,” he added. “It didn’t and that’s all that really matters. So I’m just extremely thankful for that.”

Dimeff acknowledges his focus was on trying to win the game when he made his shot, not his health or long-timer safety.

But someone’s should have been.

“I would just hope the refs stop play, honestly,” Dimeff said. “There wasn’t anything anyone could have done besides the refs. They needed to blow whistle.”