Florida head coach updates injury status of center Jason Jitoboh

Florida Gators center Jason Jitoboh has been ruled out for the 2021-2022 college basketball season, Gators’ head basketball coach Mike White announced on Friday afternoon. The talented center is having surgery on his eye sometime on Friday.

Jitoboh was down on the ground and writhing in pain after he took an inadvertent hand to the nose from Tennessee’s Olivier Nkamahoua, late in the first half of the Florida Tennessee game two days ago. Florida’s trainers were covering Jitoboh’s face with a towel as he was walking off the floor to try and stop the bleeding.

Jitoboh was going up for a rebound in a crowd of players and Nkamahoua accidentally drilled him in the eye with his hand. Officials stopped the game once he was down on the ground. He left the game with 2:30 remaining in the first half and his loss was crucial in the final outcome of the game.

Tennessee fans and their head coach Rick Barnes were not happy, because they had a fast break on the other end of the floor, but it was whistled dead.

The season-ending injury to Jitoboh is a crippling blow to the Gators’ 2021-2022 season, because Florida has been playing without its star center Colin Castleton recently due to a shoulder injury.

Without Jitoboh on the floor, they didn’t have a center for the entire second half against Tennessee, and it wasn’t pretty. The complexion of the game completely flipped in the favor of the Vols.

The Gators led 42-34 at halftime after they had some hot-shooting from three early on.

Tempers flared early on in the game, with technical fouls being issued to both Florida and Tennessee after a heated verbal exchange between Santiago Vescovi and Tyree Appleby.

Appleby was feeling it early in that game–knocking down his first two shots from beyond-the-arc, plus adding in an assist and a steal–all within the first four minutes. Brandon McKissic also nailed two of his first three shots from downtown. Florida was scorching hot from deep–hitting four of their first five attempts from beyond-the-arc.

Florida led by 12 points with 2:30 remaining in the first half, right before Jitoboh’s injury. Tennessee was able to fight its way back in the second half and won 78-71.