Monday Headlines: Sahvir Wheeler Injury Watch (UPDATE)

Kentucky and Wheeler appear to have dodged a bullet.

By John Morgan Francis and Jason Marcum Updated Oct 31, 2022, 2:42pm EDT

UPDATE

For now, it appears the Kentucky Wildcats and point guard Sahvir Wheeler avoided a significant injury in Sunday’s exhibition win over Missouri Western State.

On Monday, head coach John Calipari hopped on Alan Cutler’s radio show and said Wheeler is doing well, calling his injury a “short-term thing.”

In addition, Kyle Tucker of The Athletic is also reporting that Wheeler should be fine.

Continue hearing from folks close to Kentucky's program that Sahvir Wheeler is "fine." And John Calipari just told @cutler18 on radio that Wheeler's injury is a "short-term thing."
— Kyle Tucker (@KyleTucker_ATH) October 31, 2022

While things appear to be fine in the long term, Kentucky could be pretty thin this Thursday for the exhibition finale vs. Kentucky State.

We already know Oscar Tshiebwe is out, and you have to think Wheeler is also held out as a precaution. That means the Cats could be down to just eight scholarship players.

The injury report is trending in the wrong direction for the Kentucky Wildcats, and they’ve yet to even play a regular-season game.

Starting point guard Sahvir Wheeler, who missed Kentucky’s Blue-White Game last weekend due to a knee injury, left Sunday night’s exhibition game vs. Missouri Western State and didn’t return. He played 22 minutes and shot 2/7 from the field to score four points in the team’s 56-38 victory.

After the game, head coach John Calipari said that he hopes Wheeler will be okay, and he believes that his point guard re-injured the same knee that held Wheeler out of last Saturday’s scrimmage.

Wheeler did return to the bench before the game ended, so holding him out for the remainder of the game could have just been the team being cautious.

As the week moves on, we’ll likely learn more minor details regarding the status of Wheeler — specifically before the team’s second exhibition game vs. Kentucky State on Thursday.