Jae'Lyn Withers injury update: North Carolina forward leaves game after awkward landing

North Carolina forward Jae’Lyn Withers left Friday’s game against Ole Miss after an awkward landing on his leg in the second half. He was helped to the bench and received attention from the training staff as the game headed into a timeout.

Withers drove to the basket for a layup when the injury occurred. He immediately reached for his leg as he hit the ground and limped off the court with assistance.

After the timeout, Withers headed back to the locker room, TNT’s Lauren Shehadi said. He was unable to put weight on his leg on his way toward the tunnel.

“We just saw him roll his ankle, limp off the court,” Shehadi said. “He’s with the trainer now. You can see him trying to rotate it side-to-side. He can’t. The trainer earlier was pushing his knees together to see if he could put weight on it at all. He’s having trouble with it. Just went back to the locker room, needed full support to walk.”

Jae’Lyn Withers played a crucial role in getting North Carolina into the NCAA Tournament. He’s an important role player, averaging 6.5 points and 4.5 rebounds while shooting 49.1% from the field this season. He had a big game against San Diego State in the First Four, totaling 10 points and nine rebounds as UNC got the resounding victory to advance to the first round of March Madness.

North Carolina had to sweat it out on Selection Sunday as the Tar Heels awaited their tournament fate. Ultimately, they were the last team in the Field of 68, despite criticism around that decision. As for whether there was a “weight” to make the bracket throughout the season, Hubert Davis said that wasn’t the case. While it was the goal, he wanted his team to focus on the controllables.

“I don’t think it was a weight on us to try to get into the NCAA Tournament,” Davis said. “My communication with them is to always focus on us. It’s not the noise on the outside in terms of comments and critics. Focusing on our preparation, our practice and our play. I consistently send that message in a number of different ways because that’s the only thing that we have control over. So why waste time doing anything else.

“This group has been one of the best at staying connected and staying the course through windy and turbulent times and also clear-sky days, as well. It doesn’t surprise me that they played one of their better games today. It’s been a real focused group. You can just – over the last two months, their commitment to team is just continuing to grow. I talked earlier in the year about how quiet this team was, and the voices, the volume of the voices is exactly where it needs to be, whether it’s in the huddle, on the bus, on the floor. Just a real connected group right now.”