Martinez back at practice after twin laser eye surgeries

Rob Miech

UNLV junior walk-on forward Mychal Martinez, a former star at The Meadows School in Las Vegas, checks out the end of practice Tuesday after undergoing laser surgery on both eyes over the previous four days.

By Rob Miech (contact)

Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009 | 2:15 a.m.

Sam Morris

UNLV's Mychal Martinez moves upcourt during the Rebels FirstLook scrimmage Friday, Oct. 16, 2009, at the Thomas & Mack Center.

For the first few days of UNLV’s basketball practices, it was apparent that Mychal Martinez had an issue with his eyes. His occasional blinking of his eyes was pronounced.

He believes that has been alleviated with two laser surgeries, his left Friday and his right Monday, at the Nevada Retina Center.

He described the retinal tear in his left eye as a degenerative condition that Friday’s 45-minute procedure fixed. In a 20-minute surgery Monday, it was recommended he take care of his right eye as a precaution.

“I had had it for a while, and it finally progressed over the last couple of weeks to where I had to get it taken care of,” said Martinez, who starred at The Meadows School and went to Yavapai College in Arizona.

He is a part of UNLV’s valuable quartet of walk-ons, which includes Steve "Chopper" Jones, Tyler Norman and Todd Hanni.

Martinez, a 6-foot-6, 207-pound junior forward, has a follow-up appointment set for Friday and hopes to receive medical clearance to return to UNLV practice Monday.

Almost official

Chace Stanback pushed it a little Tuesday afternoon inside the Cox Pavilion practice gym, so he pushed it a little more.

For the first time since practice started, the third-year sophomore forward from UCLA showed up wearing his official No. 22 white practice jersey.

Tuesday marked the two-week point since Stanback badly twisted his left ankle – the worst of his life, he said – in a pick-up game.

He shot dozens of jump shots, at the opposite end of the court where his teammates were running drills, with trainer Dave Tomchek rebounding for him.

“I wasn’t really supposed to do all that,” Stanback said. “I just felt good, so I just went along with it ... it’s a great feeling knowing I’m this close to getting back out there.”

He predicted it would take about another week -- that it’s realistic to think he could return to full-speed action by early next week.

That means Stanback should be in the fold when the Rebels stage a private scrimmage at Long Beach State on Nov. 7.

“I’m not supposed to do any contact stuff, and I’ll stay away from (cutting) … one step at a time,” he said. “It’s still pretty bruised, but it’s gotten a lot better than it was.”

Free throws

Junior power forward Matt Shaw missed Saturday’s practice with swelling in his right knee, after having his anterior cruciate ligament surgically repaired two summers ago. Sunday’s off day was timed nicely, and he returned to practice Tuesday. On a scale of 1-10, he said the pain was about a 2 or 3. Still, he was not concerned. Shaw said the episode taught him to ice down his knee daily. “Sometimes it just gets irritated, and the swelling might cause some pain,” he said. “I don’t think it’s something that I’ll have to worry too much about. I’ll just take care of it better.” … former UNLV coach Charlie Spoonhour watched most of Tuedsay’s practice with a couple of friends … for what it’s worth, Lindy’s picked BYU and UNLV to finish 1-2 in the Mountain West Conference in its preseason annual. Blue Ribbon predicted a BYU, San Diego State and UNLV top-three finish, while The Sporting News went with a SDSU-BYU-UNLV top trio. That was requested after we ran with prognostications about Long Beach State, UNLV’s closed-door scrimmage foe next week, in the Big West.