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Knee condition ends Vandello's career at Illinois State

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By Jim Benson | Friday, May 2, 2008 12:16 AM CDT | () comments

NORMAL, Ill. — Some things won’t change for Mike Vandello in his senior year at Illinois State. He will be living and hanging around with his friends on the Redbird basketball team just like he has the last three years.

What Vandello won’t be doing during the 2008-09 season is wearing his No. 31 jersey during games.

ISU announced Wednesday that Vandello’s playing career has come to an end. The 6-foot-7 forward from Bettendorf has been granted a medical exemption scholarship by the NCAA because of a degenerative condition in his knees.

“I had it a little during high school, but it went away when I warmed up,” said Vandello. “My sophomore year (at ISU) is when it really hit. It prevented me from practicing sometimes. During the past year, it was sometimes unbearable.”

Because of the medical exemption, Vandello will not count toward the Redbirds’ limit of 13 scholarships.

ISU has already filled Vandello’s scholarship spot. The Redbirds signed point guard Lloyd Phillips of Iowa Western Community College to a national letter of intent two weeks ago.

Vandello played in 12 games off the bench this past season for ISU, averaging 1.7 points and 1.5 rebounds. He scored a season-high six points early in the season against Southeast Missouri State. Vandello was unavailable for many games because of his knee problems.

“Mike was a warrior for us all season and played in a great deal of pain,” ISU coach Tim Jankovich, who was out of town recruiting Wednesday, said in a statement released by the school’s sports information office.

“Through no fault of his own he will not be able to play anymore, but he will still be part of our team in every other sense of the word.”

As a freshman in the 2005-06 season, Vandello played in all 28 games and started nine times while contributing 4.9 points and 3.1 rebounds. His playing time decreased as a sophomore and so did his statistics (1.5 points, 1.7 rebounds).

Vandello said he still plans to be around the team as much as possible and may even practice occasionally if his knees permit.

“These guys are my best friends and like my second family,” he said.

Vandello is a star in the classroom at ISU with a 4.0 grade-point average in biological sciences. He was named ISU’s Scholar-Athlete of the Year last fall and has been an honorable mention selection on the Missouri Valley Conference Scholar-Athlete Basketball Team the last two seasons.

In August, Vandello plans to take the dental school admissions test. He hopes to become an orthodontist or oral surgeon.