We are profiling each member of the 2011-12 Creighton women’s basketball team. Join us weekdays from now until the women’s exhibition opener against Rockhurst for an introduction to this year’s Bluejays, from freshmen to seniors.
See all of our 2011-12 Creighton women’s basketball profiles
Norman (far right) hopes to take the warmup off this year.
Riley Norman really wants to get on the court and help her Creighton teammates. Unfortunately, things haven’t turned out as she has hoped.
In February of Norman’s senior year in high school, she hurt her knee and had to have surgery leading up to her freshman season with the Bluejays. After all the work preparing for her debut in college, she tore her ACL again during preseason workouts. After redshirting in 2010-2011, Norman begins this season with a positive outlook.
“It was really hard sitting on the sidelines,” Norman said. “Even more since I was out the year before in high school. I still haven’t played a game since February of my senior year. Injuring it again during preseason and going through the entire season knowing I wasn’t going to be able to play was pretty hard. But I got used to it about half way through and accepted it and just enjoying cheering on my teammates.”
With one knee rebuilt a couple of times and appearing to be back to normal, Norman suffered a scare a few weeks ago — an MRI on the knee found a cartilage defect.
“I’ll be getting a new brace next week,” said Norman. “They hope it will be better in a couple of weeks. Just bad luck.”
Out of high school, Norman had some great numbers and recognition. Even though she suffered her season-ending knee injury, she was still named first-team all-district, all-region, all-conference, and all-state as a senior at Roosevelt High School in Des Moines.
She is known for her defense; she racked up 99 steals in 20 games during her senior year. She also recorded almost 7 rebounds per game.
Norman is thankful for her teammates, who have been with her throughout all of the injuries.
“I think just all of the togetherness we have is great. We all hang out together. The best part of coming to practice is hanging out in the locker room before and laughing during our breaks,” she said.
Fellow Bluejay Carli Tritz suffered a knee injury in practice a few weeks ago. Norman knows what it is like to sit on the sidelines. She hopes she and Tritz won’t have to spend too much time together there.
“Carli is probably one of my best friends here. Having her out with me, right now we kind of joke sometimes even though we probably aren’t supposed to, but it is really nice. I can help her with her recovery just because I have been out so long and help her know that she is going to come back and be fine.”