Adou Thiero injury update: Arkansas star's status revealed for Round of 32 vs. St. John's

Arkansas leading scorer Adou Thiero will not play in the Round of 32 matchup against St. John’s, per ESPN’s Pete Thamel. He revealed the latest on the Razorbacks star on College GameDay on Saturday.

Theiro did not play in the Razorbacks’ NCAA Tournament opener against Kansas. However, Thiero has been out for multiple games now, spanning back into the regular season. Arkansas played without him during a two-day stint at the SEC Tournament and will now kick off March Madness doing the same.

“Earlier today, John Calipari had left the door open for him to potentially come back today. That is not going to happen. He is out today against St John’s,” Thamel said. “Perhaps he dangled that for a little bit of gamesmanship to make sure the Johnny’s had to prepare for Arkansas’ leading scorer and rebounder.”

This season, Thiero averages 15.6 points across 26 games played. He has not been on the court since Feb. 22 when the Razorbacks took down rival Missouri in Fayetteville. In total, five regular season and two SEC Tournament games have been missed.

During Arkansas’ media availability ahead of the St. John’s matchup, Calipari revealed that Thiero was on the floor and practicing with the team. However, the Arkansas headman wouldn’t reveal his injury designation at the time.

“If you ask me, I mean, the kid will try to convince me,” Calipari said. “You gotta be able to go in there and help and Boogie [Fland] was able to do it, but I have seen crazier things.”

As injuries continue to hinder the Razorbacks down the stretch, they certainly will be missing Theiro’s production against St. John’s. As Calipari noted, however, they were able to return the services of star freshman Boogie Fland to the lineup for the opener against Kansas. Fland suffered a hand injury in January, and the initial expectation was he would miss the rest of the season as a result.

He was averaging 15.1 points and 5.7 assists at the time of the issue, which looked like a key blow for Arkansas. Fland returned against the Jayhawks to score six points and three assists in 24 minutes on the court, and was a factor on defense finishing the game with three steals.

Tip-off between the Razorbacks and Red Storm is set for 2:40 p.m. ET and will air live on CBS. Arkansas will be looking for its third Sweet 16 berth in the last four seasons with a victory.