The No. 14 Jayhawks’ Saturday loss to No. 1 Houston resulted in a potentially serious shoulder injury for Kansas star Hunter Dickinson.

Dickinson suffered a dislocated right shoulder in the second half of the 76-46 loss, according to coach Bill Self’s statement following the game. Dickinson left the game after only 23 minutes, having scored 11 points. Dickinson was able to pop his shoulder back into its socket, according to Self, although the extent of the damage was unclear.

Coach Bill Self of Kansas responded, “Yeah, it is high,” when asked how concerned he was about his team’s injuries. Hunter dislocated his shoulder, but it popped back in. He will get an MRI to find out the diagnosis and to try to figure out a plan of action for him going forward. Kevin is, not much has been done since K-State. I regret that we played Kev because he felt better today and decided to give it a shot.”

 

The Kevin that Self was referring to is Kansas’ top scorer, Kevin McCullar Jr. Despite missing a significant portion of the second half of the season due to injuries, he played 15 minutes on Saturday. Tuesday’s 22-point home victory over Kansas State featured 19 points in 29 minutes from McCullar, who took four shots and was unsuccessful.

Throughout conference play, Dickinson has been Kansas’ most dependable player as McCullar has been in and out of the lineup. Dickinson is shooting 55% from the field and averaging 18.2 points and 11 rebounds per game.

Nor will Kansas receive the customary extra two days off before the Big 12 tournament. Due to their defeat on Saturday, the Jayhawks will not receive a top-four seed in the tournament and will instead have to play on Wednesday.

Despite dropping three of its final four regular-season games, Kansas is 22-9 overall and finished 10-8 in Big 12 play. It is the Jayhawks’ lowest Big 12 regular season finish since the 1999–2000 campaign, and they are expected to finish no higher than the fifth seed in the Big 12 tournament. And as Self stated, if McCullar and Dickinson are not playing at full strength moving forward, the Jayhawks might be in serious postseason trouble.