{"id":644944,"date":"2026-03-07T08:11:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T08:11:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/644944\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T08:11:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T08:11:20","slug":"mikel-brown-injury-update-louisville-stars-status-vs-miami-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/644944\/","title":{"rendered":"Mikel Brown injury update: Louisville star’s status vs. Miami revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Louisville<\/a> guard Mikel Brown Jr.<\/a> will not play on Saturday against No. 22 Miami<\/a>, per ESPN\u2019s Pete Thamel<\/a>. Brown missed Louisville\u2019s win over Syracuse<\/a> on Tuesday as well due to back pain.<\/p>\n

Brown is averaging 18.2 points, 3.3 rebounds and 4.7 assists per game, while shooting 41.0% from the field and 34.4% from beyond the arc. While Brown has excelled when healthy, he\u2019s missed nine games for the Cardinals this season.<\/p>\n

Louisville is 5-4 in Brown\u2019s nine absences. Louisville\u2019s showdown against Miami on Saturday could have significant implications for the conference tournament.<\/p>\n

The Hurricanes are currently third in the ACC standings. However, they are only one win behind Virginia<\/a> and one win ahead of North Carolina<\/a>. Brown will hope to recover before the ACC Tournament begins.<\/p>\n

Despite Mikel Brown\u2019s injury issues, he is widely expected to be a lottery pick in the 2026 NBA Draft<\/a>. In ESPN\u2019s latest mock draft, Brown was projected to be the No. 6 overall pick.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrown\u2019s upside as a tough perimeter shotmaker and playmaker with plus positional size will keep him in the lottery mix, but his defensive play and streaky shooting (26.8% from 3) have created some lingering questions for him to answer,\u201d ESPN\u2019s Jeremy Woo wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Louisville head coach Pat Kelsey said Brown wanted to play against Syracuse, but the team decided to rest him to get him ready for the postseason. Evidently, the Cardinals made a similar decision ahead of tomorrow\u2019s game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he\u2019s 100%, jeez-o-Pete,\u201d Kelsey said<\/a>, per the Courier Journal. \u201cYou guys have seen him; he\u2019s special. He just hasn\u2019t been 100% those last couple (games). He\u2019s been gutting it out \u2014 wanting to be out there for his teammates \u2014 but we just need him at 100%.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelsey believes Mikel Brown\u2019s lingering back pain could be due to the hits he takes while driving to the rim. In fact, Kelsey cautioned his freshman standout about absorbing so much punishment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something I\u2019ve been talking to him about: falling less,\u201d Kelsey said. \u201cHe drives so courageously to the rim. He takes some hits, too. I probably shouldn\u2019t say this, but he probably deserves more calls than some of the ones he gets. But that\u2019s part of being a freshman, I guess \u2014 maybe earning your stripes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Louisville and Miami will face off at 2 p.m. ET on Saturday. The game will air live on ESPNU.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Louisville guard Mikel Brown Jr. will not play on Saturday against No. 22 Miami, per ESPN\u2019s Pete Thamel.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644945,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,5411,6,12],"class_list":{"0":"post-644944","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-draft","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-mikel-brown-jr-25-overtime-elite","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-nba-draft"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116186886152139345","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}