Kansas' Hunter Dickinson dislocates shoulder, set for MRI
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.
Hunter Dickinson left the game in the second half with what Kansas coach Bill Self later said was a dislocated shoulder, and the star center will have an MRI when the team returns to Lawrence.
In addition, the status of Kevin McCullar Jr., an NBA prospect who has wrestled with a knee injury in recent months, also is unknown after he missed the second half of Saturday's loss due to the injury.
"[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. "Kevin, he hasn't done anything since [the Kansas State game on Tuesday]. Today, he felt better and thought he'd try (to play). 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 for next week's Big 12 tournament in Kansas City, Missouri.
With Saturday's contest 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 aggravated his knee injury in the win over Kansas State. He has missed six games over the past six weeks because of a bone bruise in the knee.
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."
