MILWAUKEE — Josh Speidel was late. This happens a lot with Speidel, a redshirt freshman for the University of Vermont, who can be forgetful. The Catamounts coach, John Becker, flagged down Speidel in the breakfast room at the team hotel Wednesday morning, and moments later Speidel limped into the lobby and sat down for an interview, his left hand clamped on a right arm that refused to be still.

This is the player that Becker first saw as a strapping 16-year-old on an Amateur Athletic Union team in Indiana, the one who reminded him of the Notre Dame power forward Luke Harangody. Same build. Same buzz-cut. A little overweight, but so what? Speidel could score and rebound. Halfway through his senior year at Columbus North High School, the 6-foot-7 Speidel owned the school’s career scoring and rebounding marks.

“You could tell he was going to be really good,” Becker said. “He had a determination about him.”

And he is the same Speidel whom Becker saw lying in a hospital bed 25 months ago, in a coma, his skull fractured and his left side paralyzed.

Speidel had already committed to Vermont when a sport utility vehicle struck his 1999 Honda Accord on Feb. 1, 2015, as he pulled out of a fast-food drive-through. All the others involved in the accident — a teenage girl in his car, an adult driver and two children in the other — had only minor injuries or none at all. But Speidel’s head slammed into the door frame, severely injuring his brain.