Indiana Point Guard Xavier Johnson Back On Court But Comeback Still Uncertain

Time is running out on Xavier Johnson's college basketball career.

Johnson, Indiana's sixth-year senior point guard, suffered an elbow injury on Jan. 30 against Iowa, exactly four weeks prior to Tuesday's game against Wisconsin. Woodson said Monday he was told the injury would keep Johnson out four-to-seven weeks.

During the first four games Johnson missed in February, he wore a brace on his left arm. Though he didn't play in recent losses to Nebraska and Penn State, he wasn't wearing the brace on the sideline. Woodson isn't closing the door on Johnson's return just yet.

"He did some things [Sunday] on the floor, not a lot of contact" Woodson said Monday. "So all I'm doing is I'll go down today and talk to Tim [Garl, Indiana's head athletic trainer] and see where he is. I know he wants to play, man, in the worst way. Time is kind of running out on him, and I feel for him in that regard. But I'm just going to kind of follow his lead. I don't like playing players when they don't practice and not have some kind of contact. So I don't know. I'll know more today and see where he is in terms of him wanting to play ... We'll see today, see how he felt after running around a little bit yesterday without the contact and go from there. That's all we can do."

Indiana is 1-5 since Johnson's injury against Iowa, with a three-point win at Ohio State and losses to Penn State (twice), Purdue, Northwestern and Nebraska.

In the midst of an injury-riddled season, Johnson has been limited to 14 of 27 games due to foot and elbow injuries. When healthy, he's averaging career lows with 8.3 points, 2.2 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 0.9 steals per game. He's shooting 40.7% from the field and 34.8% from 3-point range, in line with his career averages, but his 71.2% mark at the free throw line is a career low. 

Johnson has had bad luck regarding injuries over the last two seasons. After averaging 12.1 points and 5.1 assists in 2021-22, he broke his foot 11 games into the 2022-23 season and missed the remainder of the year. Johnson received a medical hardship waiver, which granted him a sixth year of eligibility in 2023-24.

"From a basketball standpoint, it's hard to gauge our season based only the fact we haven't had Xavier," Woodson said. "I'm not putting it all on that, but Xavier was a big piece to the puzzle in terms of leadership and being able to run our team as a senior point guard. We put so much pressure on Gabe Cupps that that's not fair to him, even though he's played well in spurts for us. It's been tough in that regard because we haven't had Xavier. We just got to continue to work."