USC basketball: Dewayne Dedmon and his miraculously fast-healed right foot

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Dewayne Dedmon showed up to Saturday’s USC-Minnesota game wearing a boot on his right foot.

As of Tuesday, a stress injury to that appendage was supposed to keep him out four to six weeks.

Yet, there he was in the starting lineup for the Trojans against Minnesota -- a game USC lost, 55-40.

Dedmon, the Trojans’ promising 7-foot sophomore, played 26 minutes, scoring two points and grabbing four rebounds. He missed four of five shots from the field and his only free-throw attempt.

‘I felt all right,’ Dedmon said by phone from Minnesota. ‘I’m not 100% all the way.’

Dedmon said he hadn’t really been sure if he was going to play, but that his foot kept feeling better the more he had stayed off of it in the days leading up to the game.

He sat out of USC’s 56-35 win Wednesday against UC Riverside.

A Saturday morning assessment by USC’s medical staff indicated improvement in his foot, and he was found to have no pain during basketball-related activities, team trainer David Borchardt said.

Dedmon was then reassessed before warmups and found to be OK. The USC coaching staff learned roughly 30 minutes before tipoff that he was going to be available and the decision was made for him to play.

‘He didn’t look like he was in pain in any way,’ USC Coach Kevin O’Neill said by phone.

Borchardt said Dedmon is ‘game-to-game’ in terms of his availability.

USC plays host to New Mexico on Dec. 10 at the Galen Center. Dedmon said he should be able to play in that game.

-- Baxter Holmes