SAN DIEGO β Senior Justin Kier will start again at point guard for Arizona in its NCAA Tournament first-round game against Wright State in place of Kerr Kriisa, who continues to rehabilitate an ankle sprain he suffered on March 10 against Stanford.
Kriisa is dressed and warmed up for the game but he is expected to either rest or play briefly off the bench.
Asked Thursday if he might be willing to rest Kriisa regardless of his ankle sprain, after the Wildcats beat Colorado and UCLA without him last weekend in the Pac-12 Tournament, UA coach Tommy Lloyd didn't say. But he indicated that indicate Kriisa might play off the bench Friday.
βI'm going to give you guys the standard `It's going to be a game time decision,β β Lloyd said Thursday. βBut thatβs 100 percent from the heart. Itβs true. He's made great progress. I'm sure he'll be bouncing around out there a little bit today (in practice). And we're going to -- our goal was to push it, see how close we could get him to playing. And I think he's close.
βWe'll see tomorrow what it looks like and it could be a deal where he may play but he may not start. We'll just take it from there and see where he's at.β
While Arizona practiced privately at a local high school on Thursday, they later made their mandatory appearance at Viejas Arena, where Kriisa was seen going through the mostly light drills β and showing off a bruise on his right ankle that extended halfway to his knee.
Kriisa then showed up before Friday's game and went through pregame warmups at Viejas Arena.
