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Indiana basketball releases injury report ahead of matchup with Louisville

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Indiana basketball point guard Xavier Johnson.
Vincent Carchietta-USA TODAY Sports

The Indiana basketball program hits the hardwood for game number five of the 2023-24 season on Monday afternoon and released its official injury report this morning.

The Big Ten began with its weekly availability report for football this season and announced that it would be conducting the same schedule with basketball. It was announced that programs will have to release their injury reports three hours before tip.

For Indiana, its injury report listed Xavier Johnson (ankle/foot) as questionable ahead of its game against Louisville.

Johnson injured his ankle late in Thursday’s win over Wright State. He did play on Sunday against UConn, however. This is likely all a precaution with the quick turnaround from yesterday and just a few days removed from Thursday’s initial injury.

Johnson is averaging 11.5 points and 2.0 assists per game this season. He played just 14 minutes on Sunday due to foul trouble.

“I told X … he had the two (fouls) when I put him back in. The third foul was a foul. You take yourself right back out of the game after I put you in. I’ve got to trust that you can get through the half with the two fouls, and it was clearly a foul, so that didn’t help matters,” Indiana basketball head coach Mike Woodson said postgame on Sunday. “He’s a big part of what we do. He’s gotta become better at running our team and be smart about not picking up fouls.”

The other scholarship player listed on the injury report is Jakai Newton, a four-star freshman who had knee surgery this offseason to clean up a previous surgery he had last winter. He continues to be out for the foreseeable future.

“He’s starting to move around a little bit. He ran a little bit on the treadmill. He’s been able to come out and walk through and hasn’t done a whole lot of the walk-through stuff but the stretching and the warm-up stuff prior to us actually getting going on the court,” Woodson said. ” … I think he’s moving in the right direction. How quickly he comes back, only time will tell. And then we’ve got to make a decision on what we’re going to do with him; is he healthy enough to play when he comes back? If not, then you might have to think about redshirting and things of that nature.

“We haven’t even talked about that. But, I mean, that’s on the back burner if that may occur. So we’ve just got to let nature take its course.”

Indiana faces Louisville at 4:30 pm ET on ESPNU.

SEE ALSO: ‘Just paint, paint, paint for them’: Inability to shoot 3s for Indiana basketball makes for easy defensive work on opponents

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Alec Lasley is the owner of Hoosier Illustrated, a comprehensive site covering news, updates and recruiting for Indiana University athletics. Alec has covered Indiana for six years and is a credentialed media member. He has previously worked for both Rivals and 247Sports.

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