Zvonimir Ivisic injury update: John Calipari reveals insight on Arkansas forward

After he played just single-digit minutes for the third straight game as the only player on the team’s injury report coming in this week, John Calipari was asked about the status of Zvonimir Ivisic.

Calipari got a question postgame about Ivisic’s injury, with him having dealt with an ankle as of late, after a 73-66 loss for Arkansas to No. 23 Ole Miss on Wednesday. He said the plan for the Razorbacks coming in was to start Ivisic against the Rebels before hurting that ankle to start the week. That caused him to play just a handful of minutes in the second half last night.

“He, uh – I was, my hope was to start him this game and he hurt his ankle ten minutes into practice,” said Calipari. “So he didn’t practice that day, didn’t practice yesterday.”

“Went through the shootaround, couldn’t dunk,” Calipari continued. “I mean, so I asked him at halftime can you give us anything? He said yeah and he gave us what he could.”

Ivisic played just four minutes, a season-low, in the loss as he recorded just a rebound and a foul with him missing both of his shot attempts.

With that, Ivisic has played an average of seven minutes a game over their last three against Oakland, No. 1 Tennessee, and No. 23 Ole Miss. That’s after playing 19.2 minutes in his 11 games prior this season.

In those three games, Ivisic has scored just three points total on one made triple on five shot attempts, four of which were from deep, along with six rebounds and four blocks. That has brought his season averages down to 7.9 points (50.6% FG, 44.7% 3PT), 3.4 rebounds, and 1.9 blocks.

With other injury issues, specifically in the frontcourt, for the ‘Hogs, Arkansas needs some of them to be healthy enough to play more minutes than they have at times this season. That now includes Ivisic who will try to get back to double-digit minutes played in a third-straight ranked matchup for them this weekend against No. 8 Florida.