Rhode Island won its season-opener on Friday night but it did not come without a cost.
E.C. Matthews, a 6-foot-4 junior guard who is the team’s star player, injured his knee while driving to the basket in the first half of a 65-42 win over American and is due to get an MRI on Saturday. As he spun and drove to the basket midway through the first half, Matthews went to the floor and grabbed his knee.
“It’s probably 50/50,” head coach Dan Hurley told CBS Sports when asked if it might be a season-ending injury. “From talking to the trainers and medical people, they don’t want to give you anything. I couldn’t really tell. The kid wasn’t in awful spirits.
“It could be a sprain, it could be a partial tear – everything’s in play,” Hurley added. “The knee wasn’t blowing up. It’s hard to tell. I do think there’s some hope here that he’ll be OK. If it … is the ACL, obviously, it hurts and he’d lose a year. But the ACL [injury] is not the end of the world anymore.”
Matthews is projected as the No. 53 pick in the 2017 NBA Draft by DraftExpress.com.
Rhode Island was picked to finish second in the Atlantic 10 Conference, and is expected to be in the mix for an NCAA Tournament bid.
