BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – During Indiana’s Basketball Media Day on Wednesday at Cook Hall, Trey Galloway was a picture of contentment as he took questions from the media.
If there was any doubt about the status of his left knee – he had surgery on it after the 2024 season concluded due to a meniscus injury – he didn’t show any anxiety about it.
Asked if his recovery is on schedule, Galloway didn’t hesitate.
“For sure. It’s been a long process, but it’s been a good one. I had a lot of time to ease into things,” he said. “You don’t want to rush anything and come back too soon and have that impact anything. I’m just taking my time with it to make sure I’m strong and 100% back to where I was.”
Indiana coach Mike Woodson said Galloway has eased back into the regimen. Indiana wants to make sure it’s careful with the senior, who will once again be a valuable glue guy among the expanded options Indiana will have in its backcourt.
“He’s been great. He’s been doing a lot of our conditioning work. He’s not on the floor doing five-on-five physical contact, but he’s done drills and things of that nature,” Woodson said. “We’ve kind of brought him along slowly based on how he’s feeling.”
Galloway gave some insight into his recovery process. The senior guard diligently been listening to his doctors.
“It’s just basically how my body feels and reacts. They said to listen to my body and listen to the trainers and doctors on what I need to do. I need to trust in them and trust my body,” Galloway said.
Galloway acknowledged his recovery has not been a straight line of improvement..
“With knees, it’s never smooth. There’s always going to be some times where obviously you want to speed up the process, but it’s a long process. I’ve gotten better and improved at a good rate, but there’s been times it’s been challenging,” he said.
The dichotomy of Indiana’s new-look backcourt is that it has a lot of players – Myles Rice, Kanaan Carlyle, Gabe Cupps, Jakai Newton, Anthony Leal, Luke Goode, Mackenzie Mgbako, Galloway himself – who can do a lot of things.
However, in having so many players who can do things, the paradox is that you might be able to find a defined role in the rotation by doing one thing well. Galloway has done the best he could given his health to work on his game.
“I definitely had to focus on many things. Obviously, I wasn’t able to play as much this summer as I’d like to,” Galloway said.
“I’ve been able to adjust and every year I’ve not played the same role, so obviously it’s going to be a different role because I change every year. So whatever the coaches need me to do, that’s what I do and I’m trying to do my best,” Galloway added.
As for Galloway’s return? His body will tell him when he’s good to go. Woodson has his own goal in mind for when that will happen.
“We open up next week, we’re hoping that he’s able to bang a little bit and play at a level where he played at last season,” Woodson said.
