Eli Carter suffers foot injury, won't play Friday vs. LA-Monroe
Friday, November 21, 2014 | Men's Basketball, Football, Chris Harry
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Make that two top scorers out for the Florida Gators.
Junior guard Eli Carter suffered a foot injury during practice Thursday and will be sidelined when eighth-ranked UF (1-1) faces Louisiana-Monroe (2-0) Friday night at the O'Connell Center.
Carter collapsed at the team's Thursday practice when his left foot gave out after planting to make a cut in the open floor.
“Weird,” team trainer David “Duke” Werner said. “Just a really freakish kind of play where no one even was around him.”
X-rays were negative, but the foot was swollen and Carter, who watched the team's shoot around in a boot and on crutches, was in some pain Friday. He'll undergo magnetic resonance imaging Saturday to determine the severity the injury.
The foot is not the one that Carter injured his sophomore year at Rutgers that was so slow to recover he took a medical redshirt last season.
The team's No. 2 scorer, Carter was averaging 14.5 points per game after going 8-for-9 from the floor and erupting for 21 in Monday night's home loss to Miami. Now, add him on an injury list that already includes forward Dorian Finney-Smith, the team's best player and leading scorer after going for 15 points in the season-opening win against William & Mary. Finney-Smith suffered two hairline fractures in his left hand in that game.
Now this.
“We're dealing with pretty much the same thing as the other night,” UF coach Billy Donovan said after the team's shoot-around Friday afternoon. “That game we were short-handed in the frontcourt. Now, we're short-handed in the backcourt, too. We've just got to get six or seven guys focused and playing together.” 
It'll help that 6-foot-10 sophomore center Chris Walker, suspended for the first two regular-season games, returns to active duty, but Carter's spot in the starting unit will go to freshman forward Devin Robinson (5.5 ppg, 2.5 rpg). A 6-foot-8, product, Robinson (pictured left) make the first start of his young career as the Gators -- by necessity -- go away from the three-guard starting lineup to a more convention frontcourt set.
Carter's availability for Thanksgiving week Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas -- where the Gators will play three games in as many nights, starting with a Wednesday night showdown against Georgetown -- won't be determined until after the MRI results and further examinations next week.
