What Auburn basketball coach Bruce Pearl said about Jaylin Williams' injury, timetable
AUBURN — Auburn basketball forward Jaylin Williams won't play against Georgia on Saturday, but his return to the court will be on a game-by-game basis after that.
Williams, who is averaging 13 points and 4.7 rebounds in his fifth season with the Tigers, suffered an injury to his right knee in Auburn's 70-59 loss to Kentucky on Feb. 17. He went up for a dunk, missed and his right leg appeared to get stuck on the ground while the rest of his body turned. Williams was helped to the locker room and was ruled out for the remainder of the game minutes later.
The Tigers announced the following morning that the injury was not deemed to be season ending.
"He'll travel with us to Georgia," Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said of Williams. "... We thought it was an injury that didn't do any major damage, so the timeframe of when he would be back − there was a lot of things talking about 10 days to two weeks (and) so on and so forth. But I don't think there was anything concrete on that.
"He will travel to Georgia. At this point, I don't anticipate him playing. From that point, we'll kind of go from there. Saturday will be one week from his injury. The following Saturday will be two weeks from his injury."
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The Tigers have five regular-season games remaining on their schedule, with the final contest — a matchup with Georgia in Neville Arena — set to occur March 9. That'll be exactly three weeks since Williams got hurt.
"I was extremely happy and extremely joyful," backup center Dylan Cardwell said of hearing the news that Williams' injury wasn't as severe as originally thought. "At the end of the day, it was his fifth year; he doesn't get to come back. He has a professional career after this. I'm more worried about his future more than him coming back and playing for us. I'm grateful it wasn't a tear. That would have been awful that he came back for his fifth year, gave his all to this program only for it to be over like that. I was just really relieved."
Cardwell added: "He's in good spirits. He's happy, joyful. He's walking around. He's not in a brace anymore."
Richard Silva is the Auburn athletics beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. He can be reached via email at rsilva@gannett.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @rich_silva18.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Jaylin Williams injury update: Auburn's Bruce Pearl talks timeframe
