Dickinson High standout Hanstad out for regular season

• Joe Hanstad

Press Photo by Dustin Monke Dickinson High senior guard Joe Hanstad goes up for a shot Monday against Bismarck High. Hanstad fractured his right wrist in the game and expected to be out at least six weeks.

Talk about it

The worst fears of the Dickinson High boys basketball team were realized Tuesday.

A fractured right wrist is expected to keep senior guard Joe Hanstad, the state’s leading scorer, sidelined through the regular season and possibly longer.

Hanstad will have surgery to place a pin in the scaphoid bone in his wrist today in Bismarck.

The scaphoid is located on the thumb side of the wrist, in the area where the wrist bends. Numerous medical reference websites cite the scaphoid as the wrist bone most likely to break.

“I’m just happy it’s not my knee or something more serious,” said Hanstad, who was injured in the first half of Monday’s game against Bismarck High. “I’m just trying to look on the bright side.”

He said doctors will place a pin in the wrist with the hopes that he will be able to return to the court in six weeks, though that is the best-case scenario.

“That’s if it heels up fast, if everything goes right,” Hanstad said.

Hanstad was averaging 25.1 points per game, 6.5 rebounds and 2.5 steals a game and was considered by many a front-runner for the coveted Mr. Basketball award. He signed a national letter of intent to play men’s basketball at Boise State last November.

With 1,752 career points, Hanstad was on pace to break the Class A scoring record of 1,994 held by former Valley City High School standout Jeff Boschee and become the first Class A player to score more than 2,000 points in his career.

He had scored 19 points in the first half of the Midgets’ 77-70 loss to Bismarck on Monday but took only four shots and didn’t score in the second half after emerging from the locker room with white athletic tape on his wrist.

Dickinson head coach John Wilson said he saddened when he heard that Hanstad would be sidelined.

“It’s beyond the games and it’s beyond anything like that,” Wilson said. “I feel for a kid that I know has a deep love for the game of basketball and has put in a ton of effort to become the best he can be in the sport. It’s what he lives for. It’s what he gets up every morning wanting to do. You hate the see a kid who’s in the prime of his high school career have to take a seat back and not get to finish it out in a way he’s worked hard to have happen.”

Without Hanstad, the Midgets (4-3, 2-3 West Region) will have a completely different look.

Not only was he their leading scorer, he was their tallest player and typically guarded the opposition’s best player.

Wilson said the Midgets will likely turn to senior forward Nate Moody and senior guard Jarl Abrahamson to handle the scoring load. However, the coach hopes some unsung heroes can step into bigger roles in Hanstad’s absence.

“We might need to find eight points from two or three different kids,” Wilson said. “That’s how you have to look at it. The biggest thing we tried to tell our kids today is that it’s not on anyone’s shoulders.”

Wilson hopes Hanstad is ready to go by the West Region Tournament, which begins March 3.

“Best-case scenario is he gets to come back into a team that’s gelled and a team that’s played well (without him),” Wilson said. “It really does come down to three nights in March to get a chance to play another three nights in March. You’ve got to be hot at that time.”

Hanstad agreed, saying his injury could have a silver lining if some of Dickinson’s role players can develop without him on the floor.

“We’ll be alright,” he said. “Guys will have to step up and hopefully they keep getting better without me. Hopefully they’ll have a little more confidence when I come back.”

Tags: joe hanstad, sports, midgets, preps, basketball