ESPN Men's Basketball

Tyler McKinney can see again out of his right eye less than six months removed from his second cornea transplant and just three months after having surgery to separate his iris from the pupil after swelling had stuck them together.

You would think that's enough of an accomplishment for the Creighton senior point guard. But, no, there's much more to this incredible story.

He's going to play college basketball again this season for the Bluejays.

He already is, cleared last Thursday to play pickup games, although he still has to be cautious about contact for a few more weeks.

"After the second transplant, I was told there's no chance I could play for at least a year,'' McKinney said. "Then two weeks ago, I found out the NCAA said I played in one or two too many games so last year counted. That meant this was it for me.''

"The furthest thing from my mind was having him play again,'' Creighton coach Dana Altman said. "I wasn't real optimistic about (basketball).''

"I thought he would never play again,'' said teammate and roommate Jimmy Motz. "He has made a total 180 in the last six months. I can't believe where he is today compared to where he was in March. He's back to being the same person.''

If you don't know about McKinney, then you haven't paid attention to Creighton basketball the past three years. McKinney was and is as important to the Bluejays as perhaps any other point guard over the same period, save Jameer Nelson at Saint Joseph's.

Creighton was 10-0 with McKinney last season, 10-9 without him, including a first-round NIT loss to Nebraska. The Bluejays are 54-9 when he starts, 18-14 in games he doesn't.

With him in the lineup, they are a contender in the Missouri Valley Conference to chase Southern Illinois along with Wichita State. Without him, they would have a much tougher time getting to their sixth NCAA Tournament in the past seven seasons.

"He probably meant three or four more wins to them last season and a chance to win the Missouri Valley Conference,'' said former Salukis coach Matt Painter, now an assistant at Purdue and the planned successor to Gene Keady in 2005-06. Painter's Salukis swept the Bluejays and won the MVC by five games over Creighton, Northern Iowa and Wichita State.

"If you watch Tyler McKinney play, he's not flashy, he's not fast and he doesn't shoot the ball great, but he does everything well,'' Wichita State coach Mark Turgeon said. "He has great leadership and understanding of how the game should be played. We didn't know how much not having him would affect the team, but it did. I had no idea until I played against Creighton without Tyler McKinney.''

McKinney's road back to sight, let alone high-level college basketball, is short of remarkable.

McKinney still isn't 100 percent certain when he contacted the parasitic disease commonly called Acanthamoeba. According to the CDC web site, the Acanthamoeba "can enter the skin through a cut or poor storage handling and disinfecting of contact lenses, causing a serious infection."

McKinney is convinced he got the infection when the team was in Vancouver, Canada, during a fall break tour last October. He said he was washing out his contact lense case and left water in the case. Unbeknownst to him, he had a cut on his eye where the bacteria entered his body.

"It was a freak thing that affects one in two million people,'' said McKinney, 22.

The first indication that something was wrong came when he became light sensitive in his right eye in November. Then, his vision worsened in December.

"I couldn't see my hand in front of my face,'' McKinney said.

"He would come back after practice in December and just go right to bed,'' Motz said. "He was physically weak. At first I thought it was pink eye so I stayed clear of everything he touched in the room. But things just kept getting worse.''

Making His Point
Since Tyler McKinney's arrival, Creighton is 54-9 when he starts, 18-14 when he doesn't start. Here are other stats both with and without him in the lineup:
STATS	With	Without
W-L	10-0	10-9
Scoring Offense	71.8	66.6
Scoring Defense	55.1	65.3
Scoring Margin	+16.7	+1.3
Reb. Margin	+4.0	+1.1
Field Goal %	.470	.444
3-point FG%	.391	.382
Free Throw %	.702	.695
Assists/Game	14.5	13.2
Turnovers/Game	13.7	13.4
TOs forced/Game	17.9	12.3
Steals/Game	8.1	6.0
Source: Creighton Sports Information

McKinney played in the first eight games, including road wins at Fresno State and Wyoming. He missed a game on Dec. 30 against Southwest Missouri State. He then returned for two more games on Jan. 5 and 7, road wins at Bradley and Illinois State, before shutting down for the rest of the season.

"There was one game where I stepped out of bounds three times and I didn't even know it,'' McKinney said. "I thought I got fouled, but I couldn't see.''

Altman said no one knew how much pain McKinney was in during the first few months.

"It got to the point where his eye was so sensitive to the light that we would always turn the lights off in our room,'' Motz said. "It really hit me when he didn't want to play me in college football 2004 because he couldn't look at the TV. He couldn't stay on his computer.''

McKinney applied eye drops throughout December. The numbing drops had to be applied as much as possible, as often as once an hour.

"I would lie in bed waiting for the next one,'' McKinney said. "So, I wasn't really sleeping.''

Finally, McKinney went to a hospital in January in Iowa City to see an eye specialist after seeing a cornea specialist in Omaha, Neb. He spent a week in the hospital in January, before going back to Omaha. He tried to go to class, but he couldn't handle that either.

"I could barely notice the difference between light and dark,'' McKinney said. "If it was a bright light, I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. I kept holding a few fingers up in front of my face to see them. I was blind. I really thought I was going to lose my eye. They didn't know what to do.''

By March 10, he was back in the hospital again for a week for his first cornea transplant. But, he said, the IV medication made him ill and, even worse he said, the transplant didn't take.

McKinney said he tried to stay in good spirits but he couldn't. This was his bottoming out. He went home to Urbandale, Iowa, to get away.

"That was the only time I actually cried,'' McKinney said.

The second cornea transplant was done back in Iowa City on April 1. This one took. But there were a ton of restrictions. He couldn't carry his own backpack around school. He couldn't bend over since he had 24 stitches in his eye. And then on June 16, he had "minor surgery" to correct the iris-pupil problem.

He was stunned when after the June surgery the doctor told him he might be able to play this season. He began running and doing some light lifting. At night, he wore a patch so he wouldn't scratch his eye.

Two weeks ago, he put in contact lenses for the first time since this occurred and got fitted for goggles that he must wear when he plays basketball. Last Thursday, he played in his first pickup game.

"I went eight months without playing, but after a few games I was right back at it,'' McKinney said. "I just didn't go overboard like flying into the wall.''

McKinney relied extensively on his parents' support and rides from friends throughout this ordeal, since he couldn't drive. He had to drop a few classes and was given two incompletes to finish course work over the summer since he couldn't go through the second semester.

McKinney said his passion for the game is renewed. This is it for him, since he won't play professionally. He plans on staying in school and working on a master's degree in sports marketing.

McKinney's importance is already being felt. The Bluejays suddenly feel rejuvenated with his appearance back on the court. McKinney isn't known to wow anyone with his play or his stats (4.3 ppg, 3.9 apg, 1.4 rpg in 25.2 mpg, 36.8 FG percentage, 39.1 on 3s, 60 percent at the line during his junior season. He averaged 4.1 assists and 1.6 turnovers a game as a sophomore).

Yet he runs the Bluejays' offense as efficiently as anyone has under Altman.

"They have an offense that is tough to defend,'' Painter said. "You need a point guard who can ignite the offense, initiate the first pass. They have a lot of counters, and he knows when to push it and when to use each option.

"They are a contender with him, although it depends on the impact of their two JC transfers (Nick Porter and Dennis Howard),'' Painter said.

The problem for the Bluejays was Johnny Mathies was thrust into an unfamiliar role. He wasn't a true point but had to replace McKinney at the position.

The key will be whether the Bluejays' frontline can exist in the MVC with newcomers like Porter (out with a knee scope right now), Dane Watts, Steve Smith and Jeff Day.

"We have a real experienced backcourt now with Tyler, Nate Funk, Johnny Mathies and Kellen Miliner,'' Altman said. "If Tyler can come back to where he was a year ago before he started having problems with his eye, then we will be a better team. There are still a lot of question marks up front, though.''

The questions about McKinney aren't over, but they are becoming so much clearer.

"The lights was always the worst thing for me,'' McKinney said. "The pain was so bad from the light that I couldn't open my left eye at times. That eye couldn't take the light.''

But now his eyesight, let alone his court vision, is back to normal. One would think that is enough of a comeback story.

Not quite.

"We expect to win (the league),'' McKinney said. "Last year was the first year since I've been here we didn't go to the NCAAs. We can win the conference, although it's going to take a lot of work.''

But not nearly as much as it did for McKinney to regain his eyesight and become pain free again.

Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com.