After suffering an MCL sprain in his right knee 21 seconds into the loss to Texas Wednesday night, Joel James is expected to be out 10-14 days, coach Roy Williams said Friday.
“It’s the MCL — the ACL and joint are fine, but it’s a sprained MCL in his right knee,” Williams said. “It’s likely to be roughly two weeks until he’ll return.”
James has started each of UNC’s 10 games and averages 3.7 points in 12 and a half minutes of playing time per contest.
Though he isn’t the most offensively productive member of the Tar Heels, James provides a solid post presence and corrals 4.3 rebounds per game.
The announcement of James’ injury came amid the announcement that North Carolina will not apply for the reinstatement of junior guard P.J. Hairston, and Williams hasn’t yet determined who will replace James in the starting lineup, starting with Saturday’s game against Davidson.
“You know it’s funny because I haven’t even had time to talk to my staff, so I wrote down on the practice plan today we’d put the lineup down and at the five spot I put Johnson/(Kennedy) Meeks/(Desmond) Hubert/I have no idea,” Williams said. “I haven’t talked to the staff to see who’s going to start in Joel’s place.”
“The other night we started Brice (in the second half). I would probably lean towards that, but I’m not sure because after I get finished with you guys and get finished with practice I’ll get a chance to watch Davidson play for the first time, and so a lot of that is up in the air.”
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