Why Mikel Brown Jr. isn't playing for Louisville vs. USF with injury news

The No. 6 seed Louisville Cardinals announced some unfortunate injury news on Wednesday morning. This comes at the worst time with 24 hours until their first NCAA Tournament game. 

Star freshman guard Mikel Brown Jr. will miss the Cards first round matchup against 11-seed USF on Thursday.

This is a major blow for Lousiville as Brown is their second leading scorer at 18.2 ppg and also leads the team in assists at 4.7 per game. He participated in Louisville’s practice today despite being out for opening weekend. 

Why is Mikel Brown Jr. out vs. South Florida?

Brown has been dealing with a back injury all season. It forced him out of Louisville’s last four games to finish the regular season and in the ACC tournament. This same injury kept him out of eight games earlier in the regular season.

In the 12 games without Brown this season, Louisville’s production saw a major dip. They went 7-5 without him and saw their points per 40 minutes drop from 88.1 to 81.7 and their 3pt shooting percentage dip to 33.4% from 38.2%.

Without Brown, the Cards are officially on major upset watch against a South Florida team putting up 87.7 ppg. A +6 ppg scoring advantage on Louisville without Brown.

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It was also announced that should Louisville advance past the first round that Brown would miss the Cards second round game against either Michigan State or North Dakota State.

Louisville tips off against South Florida on Thursday afternoon at 1:30 p.m. on TNT as a part of the East Region of the bracket.

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