Malik Williams to rejoin Louisville basketball team this week

Senior co-captain Malik Williams’ indefinite suspension has come to an end and he will rejoin the Louisville men’s basketball team this week, interim head coach Mike Pegues announced Monday morning.

Pegues said the decision was made after a meeting Monday morning that included himself, Williams, interim athletic director Josh Heird, and Williams’ mother via phone.

“We came to an agreement to allow the opportunity to come back, obviously under the condition that Malik can be the guy we need him to be,” Pegues said during Monday’s ACC coaches teleconference. “He’s got to conduct himself to a much higher standard than he was before the suspension. We laid out some expectations for him that he agreed to.”

Williams has been away from the team since the indefinite suspension was first announced last Monday. He was not on the bench for last Tuesday’s overtime loss to North Carolina, and he did not travel with the team to Syracuse.

“We’ll have him back in film and in practice today,” Pegues said. “The expectation is that he’ll practice today and tomorrow and have an opportunity to play Wednesday night against Notre Dame.”

Williams is currently Louisville’s leader in both scoring (10.0 ppg) and rebounding (8.7 rpg). He has produced a career-high six double-doubles in 20 games so far this season.

Here’s hoping Malik can make the most of this opportunity and help with the effort of making these next four weeks as enjoyable as possible. You would have hated to see a guy who has put as much time into this program as he has go out the way it was looking like he might go out.