It looks like a case of too little, too late, but Xavier Johnson appears to have a chance to finish his college career where he wants to be — on the court.
Johnson injured his left elbow on Jan. 30 during a home game against Iowa. He’s generally been seen wearing a brace on that elbow since, although he didn’t have it on Saturday at Penn State. That was the first sign Johnson was trending towards a return, and the next clue came today via head coach Mike Woodson.
“He did some things yesterday (Sunday) on the floor, not a lot of contact,” Woodson told the media via Zoom on Monday morning. “So I’ll go down today and talk to Tim (IU trainer Garl) and see where he is.”
Johnson injured his elbow when he fell hard to the floor after attempting a dunk late in the win over the Hawkeyes. IU has only won one game since.
On the season, Johnson is averaging 8.3 points, 2.2 rebounds and 2.1 assists while shooting 40.7 percent from the field.
Indiana is 8-6 in the games Johnson has played, and 6-7 in the games he has missed.
If he returns, it will be the third time in the last four months Johnson has come back from an injury.
He played in the first six games this season after suffering a broken foot in December of 2022 at Kansas. But a stress fracture in his other foot suffered on Nov. 26 against Harvard caused Johnson to miss seven games. He returned on Jan. 3 at Nebraska and played in all eight games in January before suffering the elbow injury.
Now Johnson has just four regular season games and the Big Ten Tournament remaining in his college career.
“I know he wants to play in the worst way and time is kind of running out him and I feel for him in that regard,” Woodson said. “I’m just gonna kind of follow his lead. I don’t like to play players when they don’t practice and have some kind of contact.
“I’ll know more today (Monday) and see where he is in terms of him wanting to play. I know they told him four to six, seven weeks at the time of the injury, and we’re at I think about four weeks now. So we’ll see today to see how he felt after running around a little bit yesterday and go from there. That’s all we can do.”
Indiana (14-13, 6-10) and Wisconsin (18-9, 10-6) tip at 7 p.m. ET on Tuesday (Peacock).
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