Injuries have ravaged the Auburn backcourt throughout the season, and the Tigers could be left with only two scholarship guards available for Tuesday’s matchup versus undefeated South Carolina.
TJ Lang was injured with 30 seconds left in the first half against Tennessee while fighting a Volunteer player for a loose ball. He did not return, and Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said after the game that the guard had shown concussion symptoms.
Pearl updated Lang’s status at a press conference on Monday, saying it’s possible he could play Tuesday.
“TJ Lang is going to try to practice today,” Pearl said. “Because we haven't gone yet, I can't say 100 percent that he's available. He has passed all the concussion protocols at this point. The next thing for him will be getting up and down and start running a little bit and see how he feels.”
Pearl also ruled out freshman point guard New Williams, who has battled knee injuries since his junior year of high school.
Williams missed the last game of the Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic and played only three minutes in his return to the court against Tennessee.
“His knee is just not right,” Pearl said. “He's had a couple of tweaks, and the brace has kept it to a tweak as opposed to any type of dislocation — that's a positive. The fact that it's still moving on him means he needs some time off and needs to strengthen. Obviously, it just further depletes us in the backcourt.”
Auburn currently has four scholarship guards dealing with injuries, with Lang and Williams joining T.J. Dunans and Tahj Shamsid-Deen.
Dunans is out three to five weeks after suffering a severely bruised knee against Harvard in the second game of the Diamond Head Classic. Shamsid-Deen dislocated his shoulder for a third time this season in Auburn’s game against Xavier, and he is out for an undisclosed amount of time.
All told, Auburn will be without a combined average of 21.2 points and 65.4 minutes per game.
Auburn is also without Danjel Purifoy, who has still not been cleared by the NCAA as a result of an ongoing investigation into his ACT score.
“Not having Tahj, T.J. Dunans, Danjel Purifoy —three of our top, say, five guards along with Kareem Canty and Bryce Brown—compromises our ability to be able to compete at the highest level of this league,” Pearl said. “It gets to the point where our roster is thin. Is it going to be good enough to compete? Well, we saw Saturday it was good enough to beat Tennessee at home. Will it be good enough to beat a good South Carolina team? We’ll find out Tuesday night.”
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