UConn Women’s Basketball: Katie Lou Samuelson Undergoes Successful Left Ankle Surgery

Katie Lou Samuelson underwent successful surgery on her left ankle on Thursday morning, the school confirmed to The UConn Blog.

“UConn women’s basketball junior All-American Katie Lou Samuelson underwent surgery on her left ankle this morning. The surgery was successful and she’s expected to be ready for the start of the 2018-19 season,” UConn said in a statement.

Samuelson’s older sister, Karlie, tweeted a photo of the junior going into surgery this morning.

Samuelson hurt her ankle in the home opener against Cal and missed the next four games. She returned against Notre Dame but re-aggravated the injury and went into the locker room, but eventually returned to the game.

The ankle frequently bothered Samuelson both before and after the injury and the surgery should help to reduce those issues.

“I sprain this ankle a lot and usually just get up and walk and after a couple steps it’s fine,” Samuelson said in December. “Coach knows that, [athletic trainer Janelle Francisco] knows that, so nobody was sending in a sub or having a trainer run over because I usually walk it off but it felt different than a normal sprain.”

Despite managing the injury all season, the junior still led the team with 17.4 points per game while shooting a team-high .474 from three. She also averaged 4.5 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game en route to winning American Athletic Conference Player of the Year and All-American honors.