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Myron Medcalf, ESPN Staff Writer
No. 14 Kansas suffered a 76-46 blowout loss at top-ranked Houston on Saturday, but the defeat might not have been the worst news of the day for the Jayhawks.
After the loss, Kansas coach Bill Self said center Hunter Dickinson, who left the game in the second half with a shoulder injury, will have an MRI when the team returns to Lawrence after he left the game because he “dislocated it,” Self said. And the status of Kevin McCullar Jr., an NBA prospect who has wrestled with a knee injury in recent months, is also unknown after he missed the second half due to the injury, according to Self.
“[Dickinson] dislocated his shoulder, popped back in, but he’ll have an MRI to see the diagnosis and try to get a game plan moving forward for him,” Self said after the game. “Kevin, he hasn’t done anything since [the Kansas State game this week]. Today, he felt better and thought he’d try. I wish we wouldn’t have played [McCullar]. It’s a pretty big level of concern when your two best players are probably questionable moving forward.”
Self said it’s “too soon” to know if Dickinson and McCullar will be available next week’s Big 12 tournament in Kansas City.
With the game already out-of-reach, Dickinson injured his right shoulder while battling for a rebound at the 11:08 mark of the second half. He immediately ran back to the locker room clutching the shoulder.
McCullar reaggravated his knee injury in his team’s win over Kansas State earlier this week. He has missed six games over the last six weeks because of a bone bruise in his knee that has impacted his playing time.
Self said it’s difficult to project the weeks ahead for Kansas because of the injuries.
“I don’t feel great about the big picture, only because I don’t know what our health situation is,” he said. “Guys, if we had our five guys and they’re all lined up and they’re healthy, we can play with anybody. But we’re not right now. Now, that’s not why we lost today but that’s been the primary reason when we haven’t played well recently, so hopefully we’ll get a good report on [Dickinson] and hopefully, [McCullar] will start feeling better. And if that’s the case, our outlook will be different than it is right now.”