After ACL tear, Thomas working toward return
WBB: The junior forward tore her ACL back in January against Indiana State
Back on January 24th, Murray State beat Indiana State, 97-71, to improve to 13-4 on the season. On a night the Racers should have been celebrating their fifth-straight win, that joy was muted. Sophomore forward Destiny Thomas had her left knee wrapped in ice after the game — the final game she’d ultimately play during the season. For the second time in her career, Thomas had torn an ACL, forcing her into a cheerleading role for the rest of Murray State’s championship run.
“Not playing was tough those first few games,” Thomas said. “I kind of just realized, ‘I'm not going to be out there. I just need to do whatever I need to do to help the team.’ I think that became a lot easier when we were winning. If you're winning, there's nothing you can really complain about. I think I did a really good job of being positive to my teammates and helping them win.”
With the season in the rearview mirror, Thomas’ focus now turns to rehabbing her injured knee. Having gone through this once already back in high school, she said she’s a little more prepared for what she needs to go through.
“I think mentally it's a little bit better only because I'm not pushing myself, to an extent, (thinking) I'm behind (in my rehab) because I know I'm not,” Thomas said. “I know the first time I was just wanting to get back so fast, because I hadn’t been through it. But this time, I think I'm a lot more patient and just more, I don't know, just more accepting.”
Thomas will be limited in what she can do on the court for the next several months, but that doesn’t mean she won’t working to improve as a player this summer.
“I can shoot right now,” Thomas said. “So I'm trying to improve that. During the summer, I’ll be working on my speed and agility. Obviously my strength, getting back stronger, building my muscle back, and then obviously just doing what I can, improving my shot, and then just getting faster.”
“Des has been in the gym every day,” Murray State Head Coach Rechelle Turner added. “I mean she's been ballhandling. She's been doing some form shooting. She will progress throughout time more and more. She'll be working on the ball handling, the shooting. She just won't be cutting and definitely won't be having any contact for a while, but she is doing everything that she can do. I've seen her in the gym just as much as ever because I think that it’s important to keep a ball in her hand, keep her motivated to continue to get better. It's all about her energy and effort. She's going to bring that and then that's going to bring the other parts of her game out and that's going to help her get even better.”
During her high school career, Thomas scored 2,559 points and she was a Kentucky Miss Basketball candidate as a senior in 2023. So far at Murray State, Turner has needed Thomas to contribute in other ways than scoring. Now that Katelyn Young, the program’s all-time leading scorer, has graduated, Thomas believes she’s ready to provide a more significant impact on the offensive end.
“Obviously, my role is going to change,” Thomas said. “Last year, I never had to score — that was great, a good weight off my shoulders. We're losing the best scorer from our program, so I have to step my game up, but that's nothing that I haven't done my whole life. That's a new role that I'll be ready for.”
“I think everybody's roles change every year,” Turner said. “No team is the same and we know what she's capable of doing. She knows what she's capable of doing. I think that you could see her being in a position to score more. That wasn't her role last year, but she played her role extremely well and she was a huge part of our success.”
Fewer than five months from the start of the 2025-26 season, Thomas is pretty adamant about when she’ll be be cleared and ready to play.
“I will be back 100% before our first game,” Thomas said with a smile.
Is that Destiny Thomas saying that or is that Murray State’s doctors saying that?
“I’ll be on the floor our first game,” Thomas reiterated. “My goal is to be 100% and a better player by conference — at full force and comfortable. That's really my goal right there, to be 100% (in November), and 110% by conference time (in January).”
“I think she's on point there,” Turner said. “She's doing a great job. She looks great and really strong. She's been through it. She knows the expectation and she's going to work hard at it. Greg (Jocelyn), our athletic trainer, does a great job of getting them back in and pushing them through the process. When she gets fully released, she'll go right back into practice and then get acclimated back again to the speed and the physicality. She'll be physically ready to go before she's mentally ready to go. That's just part of going through an ACL tear or traumatic injury like that. But I agree with her — I think she will be back better than she was by conference play, which is great to know because that's when the real meat of the season is. That's when the games matter the most. I think she is right in her mind of where she'll be and that's our expectation.”
Thomas got a chance to cut down the nets in Evansville after the Racers won a Missouri Valley Conference championship in March, but she did it in street clothes. This season, she’s going to do everything in her power to help her team do it again.
“That feeling is just something that you can't even describe,” Thomas said. “We talk about it all the time. Why would you not want to do it again? Obviously, the target's on our back. I feel like we have great competitors and people coming in, transfers, freshmen, returners. We just want to win, and just the culture that we have, we hate losing. As long as we're here, and as long as I'm here, I know for sure that we're going to want to win and our goal is to get back and even go farther in the NCAA Tournament.”