Basketball in Africa

ROUGH play can be damaging to an athlete’s career and can also be life-threatening. Just ask basketballer Heribert Derjacques.

What seemed to be a simple foul when he was elbowed in the left cheek, during the Angel Derjacques (right) is recuperating from a serious operationFish-sponsored men’s Curtain-raiser final between PLS Hawks and Premium Cobras, has turned out to be quite serious.

The blow affected PLS Hawks’ small forward Derjacques’ zygomatic arch – the part of the temporal bone of the skull that forms the prominence of the cheek.

Also known as the cheekbone, the zygomatic arch is formed by the zygomatic process of the temporal bone (a bone extending forward from the side of the skull, over the opening of the ear) and the temporal process of the zygomatic bone (the side of the cheekbone), the two being united by an oblique suture; the tendon of the temporalis passes medial to the arch to gain insertion into the coronoid process of the mandible.

Derjacques was operated on last Friday by local maxillo surgeon Wix Cupidon, who used the Gilles technique. Released from hospital on Sunday, the player is doing fine.

It is not clear when the clutch 3-point shooter, who won a silver medal with the national team at the fourth Indian Ocean Islands Games on home soil in 1993, will resume training.

by G.G. the nation