Stanford coach Jerod Haase told The Bootleg (a Stanford-focused 247 site) that three Cardinal starters won't make the trip to face Arizona on Thursday at McKale: Guards Bryce Wills, Daejon Davis and wing Ziaire Williams.
That's good news for an Arizona team that is already without guard Jemarl Baker and might only have wing Bennedict Mathurin in limited form, if at all.
UA coach Sean Miller said Wednesday that Mathurin's sprained ankle was not significant but that he wasn't sure if Mathurin would be able to play Thursday after suffering the injury on Monday against ASU.
"I believe that every day that goes by, he's going to make significant progress," Miller said. "It's not as significant as it could have been but I don't have a yes or no answer on whether he'll play and if he plays what role he'll have."
Miller also confirmed that guard Kerr Kriisa will be eligible to play on Feb. 4 at Utah (even before the originally expected date of Feb. 6 at Colorado) based on what he has been told. Kriisa was ordered to sit out the first 70% of Arizona's games by the NCAA clearinghouse but the move of Arizona's second game with ASU also moved up Kriisa's timeline.
While Kriisa still won't be able to play this weekend, Arizona won't have to face many traditional guards without Davis and Willis, nor deal with Williams, who had 16 points and four assists in Stanford's Dec. 19 win over Arizona in Santa Cruz.
Davis went down with a leg injury in Stanford's first game against Arizona, while Wills suffered an ankle injury on Jan. 4 at Oregon State and Williams missed a game against UCLA last week for unspecified reasons.
"None of them will be with us on the trip," Haase told The Bootleg. "And then hopefully at some point, after things get settled here, they'll be back again, no timeline, but nobody will be with us traveling."
