Four-star Florida commit returns to action

Four-star Florida forward commit Noah Dickerson is finally back in uniform and playing for Montverde Academy. Four days before Montverde opened their season, the 6-foot-8, 245-pound senior fractured a bone in his foot and didn't return to action until January 16.

Inside the Gators caught up with Dickerson, following a seven point, eight rebound and one assist performance in Montverde Academy's 35-point win over St. Petersburg Gibbs at the Wally Keller Classic last Saturday, in order to get a feel for how he's doing now that he has returned to the court.

"It was a stress fracture in my fourth metatarsal in my left foot," explained Dickerson. "In practice, I was just on the line about to start running and I pushed off and it just cracked."

Dickerson returned to the court the night before our viewing, in an overtime win against Miami (Fla.) Norland. On Saturday he told us that the "rust" was minimal.

"I feel pretty good," he said. "My wind is coming back. It was way better than my first game on Friday. It's coming back it's getting there. "It felt great, I've been on the sidelines for two months. I'm glad I could go out there with my teammates and contribute to a win."

As the weeks and months passed, Dickerson did what he could to maintain his conditioning, but mostly what he did was rely on his patience.

"I really didn't do much rehab," Dickerson said. "I just sat there and waited for my bone to grow back together. I rode the bike a lot and worked a lot on my upper body, tried to get my heart rate up so I could stay in some kind of shape."

Missing games, for whatever reason, is never easy on a player, but Dickerson seemed to take his situation in stride and remain positive throughout.

"I think everybody on the team has a role to play," said Dickerson. "At the time my role was to sit there and cheer on my team to win. It was hard that I couldn't be out there helping my guys, but that was just my role at the time, to sit there and cheer on my team."

Florida's coaching staff also had a role to play, staying in regular contact with Dickerson during his down time.

"They were great," said Dickerson. "They called and text me all the time wondering how I was doing and what's the timetable and things like that. They were really good checking up on me."

Dickerson, the No. 64 ranked player in the Rivals150, has always been skilled in the paint. He likes to use a spin move, catching an entry pass and spin baseline. If the defense cuts that off he'll spin back the other way.

"I have about two or three moves that I do and about two or three counter moves that I do," said Dickerson. "Everything else is an up and under and step through, just me feeling where the defender is on me and figuring how to get the ball up. Because when you're that close to the basket, you just need a little bit of separation so you can get the shot off."

The power forward isn't a "stretch-four" but he does have an evolving face up game.

"That's what I worked on a lot while I was sitting out because I could just take jump shots," Dickerson said. "I've been adjusting to the game speed, because the speed of the game is different than practice, which is why I was rushing my shot today. So I have to slow it down a bit."

No doubt that Dickerson has been keeping up on the Gators and is chomping at the bit to get up to Gainesville for another visit.

"I'm probably going to take a visit February 7th for the Kentucky game," he said.

Russ Wood is a contributing national basketball recruiting analyst for Inside the Gators & Rivals. You can click here to follow him on Twitter.