Perry Ellis discusses his serious knee injury on first of many Internet videos

Seated on Wichita State’s Koch Arena floor, former Kansas basketball forward Perry Ellis made eye contact with his mother, Fonda, Thursday night and uttered the words, ‘It’s a wrap.’’’

Ellis, a 6-foot-8 Wichita Heights graduate who grew up just a few blocks from the WSU arena, let his mom, who was perched in the stands, know he was finished for the night — and likely for some time to come.

He’d suffered what was eventually diagnosed as a torn patellar tendon in his right knee in the opening minute of the KU alumni team’s 87-63 loss to Sideline Cancer in The Basketball Tournament.

“I will never forget that look that he gave me,” Fonda Ellis wrote Saturday night in a post on Facebook.

Perry, who will undergo surgery Wednesday in Kansas City and will not be able to travel to Japan to play hoops during the 2019-20 season as originally planned, has started a social media video blog to keep fans informed during his recovery from the serious injury.

He explained what happened to cause the injury in his first video released on Saturday night.

“Basically I was just falling backwards. I was falling down trying to catch myself on my right leg,” said Ellis, who had lowered his right shoulder into a Sideline Cancer defender and went up for a layup, which was blocked. When Ellis landed, his right knee buckled.

“So much weight was on the back I guess it just gave away,” Ellis said of his patellar tendon.

After communicating with Fonda … “I was walking back to the training room, went to the locker room. When I looked down at my knee, I said, ‘I’ve got an unproportional knee like a camel.’ I said, ‘This isn’t looking right,’’’ Ellis added.

“I told my family … I said, ‘I can’t feel my patella. It’s got to be my patellar tendon.’ Sure enough I went to the hospital and that’s what it was. The injury is not going to fix itself so I’ve got to get surgery (Wednesday in Kansas City). The frustrating thing,” he noted, “is I was about to be on my way to Japan to go play. Unfortunately that injury happened and I mean, ‘That’s basketball.’ Now it’s just time to get better. I’ve got a new obstacle in my way and now I’m just trying to get better and get back to where I was.”

He figures to be out several months while rehabbing the injury.

“I’ll be chilling — a lot of Xbox,” Ellis said on his first injury update video. “People that know me (know) I’m a gamer. I’ve got a lot of time on my hands now so I’ll be chilling with a lot of ice.”

Ellis, 25, had been so enthused about playing for KU in the single-elimination TBT. The team, named “Self Made,” practiced five days in Lawrence before tipping off the event Thursday night.

“Yeah we were in the TBT tournament here in Wichita so I had to play in it. Elijah (Johnson, KU teammate) had reached out and was like, ‘Do you want to play in this tournament for Self Made?’’’ Ellis said, pointing to the Self Made emblem on his T-shirt.

“I had to do it (being in his hometown). It was pretty cool getting to see all those familiar faces out in the crowd. Just at the crowd at the beginning when they were cheering my name was pretty cool. It was really loud. It was just a great feeling.”

Unfortunately he played just that first minute, leaving with his serious injury.

“You want to get as much swelling out as you can before surgery,” Ellis said Saturday. “That’s my goal. I’m trying to elevate it a lot.”

He showed his technique of placing frozen bags of “peas and carrots, green peas and black eyed peas” right on his patella.

“I encourage you all if you’ve got some injury, get sandwich bags and put it right on there (knee). You can use them (frozen bags of food) so many times.

“The crazy thing,” Ellis continued, “is it doesn’t hurt. (When) I’m just sitting there, the tendon itself, I don’t feel anything. It’s just swollen. When I stand up you feel pressure in there.”

He noted he’d have to get fitted for some longer crutches after surgery.

“These are the only crutches they had. What’s it say on there? 6-foot-6? I’m 6-7, 6-8 with shoes. I guess I’ve got big legs,” Ellis said.

Ellis concluded video No. 1 by saying: “I’m going to try to put out a video every step of the way, to share the process I’m going through. Last but not least I want to thank everybody for their support and prayers and the messages. This is my way of keeping you guys in the loop.”

This story was originally published July 28, 2019 at 1:51 PM with the headline "Perry Ellis discusses his serious knee injury on first of many Internet videos."