Tennessee basketball is still waiting to see who its opponent will be in the first round of the NCAA Tournament as 11-seed SMU prepares to face Miami (Ohio) in the First Four Wednesday night. With a SMU win, the Vols will get a reunion with former guard B.J. Edwards.
However, Edwards has missed the Mustangs’ last five games with an ankle injury and they listed him as “questionable” on the official injury report Tuesday night.
*ESPN’s Pete Thamel reports that Edwards is out against Miami (Ohio) but that the Mustangs are opportunistic about his status moving forward if they advance
“As far as B.J. has made a lot of progress,” SMU head coach Andy Enfield said Tuesday. “He works every day with our trainer, Ray. Yesterday he looked really good. He made a lot of shots. He’s shooting the ball well, moving well. We feel great about it. Obviously it’s going to be a situation where if he can go, great. But we’re always going to do what’s best for the student-athlete, so we feel great right now, and he looked great yesterday.”
SMU has been struggling since Edwards suffered the injury. The senior guard suffered the ankle injury in a road loss at Cal. That was the start of a six-game stretch where the Mustangs have won just one game. SMU lost its final four games of the regular season before going 1-1 in the ACC Tournament.
Enfield expressed frustration with how the injury happened saying it was a flaw with the court design at Cal which led to the injury.
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“He had an unfortunate injury,” Enfield said. “He fell into Cal basket support. The basket support is too close to the baseline and there’s not enough clearance. It’s like a Paul George type injury where he hit the basket support and hurt his ankle. But he’s made a lot of progress. By the way, I don’t see how in today’s environment you don’t have enough clearance under the basket at a power conference school. But that’s an avoidable injury.”
Edwards has started all 28 games he’s played in this season, averaging 12.7 points, 5.9 rebounds and 4.9 assists. He’s shooting 47.4% from the field and 37.2% from three-point range this season.
The Knoxville native began his career at Tennessee but played in just 14 games as a freshman, averaging 1.2 points in 4.3 minutes per game. Behind Zakai Zeigler and others on the depth chart, Edwards entered the transfer portal after his freshman year before landing at SMU.
“BJ was always a good player,” Tennessee associate head coach Justin Gainey said Wednesday. “When he was here, we really loved him. We didn’t want to see him go. (We) understood his decision, but always saw the vision and the potential that he had. And it’s awesome to see him kind of living that out and doing what he does. And just excited for him, excited for his family, and wish him and hope he gets healthy.”
Tipoff between SMU and Miami (Ohio) is at 9:15 p.m. ET on Wednesday night. The Vols face the winner at 4:25 p.m. ET on Friday afternoon in Philadelphia.
