Mylik Wilson injury update: Houston guard's status for Tennessee game takes significant turn

Houston guard Mylik Wilson is not practicing Saturday following a fall against Purdue in the Sweet 16, per ESPN’s Pete Thamel. He’s a game-time decision for the Elite Eight.

“Houston senior guard Mylik Wilson is not practicing today after taking a hard fall against Purdue, per a spokesman,” Thamel wrote on Twitter. “He’s considered a game-time decision against Tennessee. He averages 5.7 points and 4.2 rebounds for Houston.”

Head coach Kelvin Sampson confirmed as much Saturday. Although he didn’t provide much update about game status.

“He’s not practicing,” Sampson said. “He’s back at the hotel. Other than that, I think they’re just observing him.”

Wilson is a key cog to the Cougars’ efforts to win a national title. They had to scrape by Purdue, a game that game down to the final seconds.

“First of all, congratulations to Coach Painter and his team, program,” Sampson said postgame. “Ton of respect for those guys. But tough game. We went up 10 with a couple opportunities to maybe extend it. Tough night for us, our main guys, Cryer and Sharp. But I thought Purdue played really tough defensively too. A lot of times coaches talk about what they didn’t do. Sometimes you have to give the other team credit. I thought Purdue played hard. I thought their crowd was tremendous, so for us, just finding a way to win. It’s what we’ve been pretty good at all year.”

Mylik Wilson game-time decision for Houston

Wilson is a game-time decision and the hope is that he’ll play for Houston against Tennessee. The Vols, if they don’t face him, will have one less thing to worry about.

“Last two or three minutes, we really executed on different possessions to get the shot we wanted,” Sampson said of advancing. “The last play on out of bounds, we call that a three read where they took away the first option, but our discipline allowed us to get to the second option, and then the read allowed us to get to the third option.

“So credit our guys for executing when they needed to. They’ve done that three or four times this year at the end of games. Helped bail us out, so we move on. You get to the Sweet 16, every game is a fistfight. Very fortunate to win that game and look forward to playing on Sunday.”