Louisville center Malik Williams “day-to-day” with knee injury

In the midst of the best stretch of basketball of his junior season, Malik Williams has been dealt yet another setback.

The Cardinal big man suffered a knee injury near the end of U of L’s 68-64 win over Georgia Tech on Wednesday night and now may not play in Saturday’s game against Clemson.

“He’s day-to-day,” Louisville head coach Chris Mack said Friday afternoon. “He suffered a knee injury versus Georgia Tech. Thankfully, it wasn’t anything that required surgery or him being out for an extended period of time. He’s day-to-day at this point. It’s a bruise. Whether he plays tomorrow, I don’t know yet.”

Near the end of Wednesday’s game, Williams went up for a putback dunk and came down on top of a Georgia Tech player. Though he hobbled down the floor after the play, he was able to remain in the game and knocked down a pair of free-throws in the closing seconds that sealed the victory for the Cardinals.

For the season, Williams is averaging 8.1 points and 6.4 rebounds per game. He also has an established reputation for being one of the better defensive big men in the ACC.

Against Clemson on Saturday, Louisville will be facing one of the more unique big men in the conference in Aamir Simms. He’ll be a tough task for Steven Enoch, and if Williams isn’t able to play, Mack seemed to hint during Friday’s press conference that he’d be more likely to go small and play Dwayne Sutton at the five when Enoch has to come out of the game than he would to give major minutes to freshman Aidan Igiehon.