Indefinitely means at least the rest of the regular season.
A day after Georgia basketball coach Mark Fox announced through a release that Bulldogs junior forward Yante Maten would be out indefinitely due to the knee sprain suffered early in Saturday's loss to Kentucky, he was a bit more descriptive about Maten's outlook. The 6-foot-8, 240-pounder leads the Bulldogs with 18.7 points per game.
"It's a very significant sprain and a very serious injury," Fox said Monday on the Southeastern Conference teleconference. "I don't think our medical people or myself have any expectation of Yante returning during the regular season. The odds of that are very, very slim."
The Bulldogs lost 82-77 to Kentucky in Stegeman Coliseum. They play at Alabama on Thursday and host LSU on Saturday. Next week's schedule contains a home game against Auburn and a trip to Arkansas.
Georgia is 15-12 overall and 6-8 in league play, so the hindered Bulldogs have work to do to set a program record with four consecutive 20-win seasons.
"Losing Yante will be a tremendous challenge for our team, but I would expect that we will come back again with the right approach," Fox said. "Hopefully, we can find a way to reinvent what we do. We played fairly well the other night without him, and we played well for a short stretch at Tennessee without him, so it can be done.
"Obviously, he's been the most productive player on our team, and we're going to have to look at some things with our rotation to compensate for the fact that he's going to be out. We'll have to get creative."
Life without Egbunu
Florida is dealing with the loss of its inside leader as well, having played Saturday for the first time since 6-11, 255-pound redshirt junior John Egbunu was lost for the year with a torn ACL. Stepping up for the Gators in their 57-52 triumph at Mississippi State was 6-9, 218-pound sophomore Kevarrius Hayes with nine points, 10 rebounds and four blocked shots in 25 minutes.
"He played great the other day and played as well as anyone on our team," Florida second-year coach Mike White said. "Certainly we hope we can get that kind of production from him night in and night out, but we haven't had to count on him in the past. For him to do that consistently, we would welcome it, but we can't count on him.
"He's got pressure on him to produce for us to maintain our level of play, and we've also got to get some help from some other guys as well."
Hayes and the Gators host South Carolina tonight on ESPN.
Lunardi update
The SEC had four representatives in the latest NCAA tournament projection released Monday by ESPN's Joe Lunardi, with Florida and Kentucky both 3 seeds, South Carolina a 7 seed and Arkansas a 9 seed. Tennessee is second among Lunardi's "First Four Out," trailing Illinois State.
Now the hunted
Two weeks ago, South Carolina led the SEC with a 9-1 mark, but Frank Martin's Gamecocks have lost three of their last four games, including home setbacks against Alabama and Arkansas. Martin believes his players are having to adjust to being targeted for the first time in their college careers.
"It's a different dynamic for the guys in our locker room, and that's part of the continued growth of our program and players," Martin said. "Alabama, Arkansas and Vanderbilt are very good teams, and they know that because of what our guys have done, if they can beat us, it makes them credible.
"It's a credit to the kids in our locker room who have put our program in this situation."
South Carolina is no longer in The Associated Press Top 25, leaving only Kentucky (No. 11) and Florida (No. 13) ranked within the league.
Pearl of wisdom?
College basketball coaches have been known to support one another, but Auburn's Bruce Pearl took that to the extreme Monday when discussing LSU. The two sets of Tigers vie tonight in Baton Rouge.
"It's an amazing story," Pearl said. "They're playing so hard and so well together."
LSU ranks last in conference play with a 1-13 record.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.