Junior Phil Booth, the injured star of the Villanova’s NCAA championship game win over North Carolina, is still experiencing knee discomfort, and his chances of rejoining the Wildcats this season are dwindling, head coach Jay Wright said Saturday.
Booth scored a career-high 20 points in Villanova’s win over North Carolina in Houston on 6-for-7 shooting and projected as a starter on Wright’s 2017 team.
He underwent an arthroscopic procedure on his knee in May but has experienced knee discomfort since.
After struggling through three early season games – Booth shot 5-for-19 against Lafayette, Purdue and Western Michigan – Villanova shut Booth down with lingering knee pain.
He has not played in more than two months -- since the Nov. 17 win over Western Michigan in Charleston, S.C.
After Villanova beat Providence at the Wells Fargo Center on Saturday (see Instant Replay), Wright wouldn’t rule out Booth returning at some point, but he said his chances are decreasing every day.
“There’s a chance,” Wright said. “If he got to the point where he said to us, ‘I’m good, I’ve got no pain,’ then we have to start looking at, ‘All right, how long is going to take you to get back,’ and then make a decision.
“We can’t make a decision because he’s still not saying he’s pain-free. As we all know the longer he goes, the longer it’s going to take him to get back and the deeper it gets in the season. Each day it looks worse.”
Booth averaged 7.0 points per game last year and shot 9 for 16 from three during Villanova’s six NCAA tournament games.
Even though he played in three games, Booth could get a fifth year of eligibility as a medical red-shirt if he doesn’t play again this year. So he could return next year if healthy with two years left of eligibility.
Even without Booth, Villanova is 19-1 and ranked No. 1 in the country.
The regular season ends in just five weeks, and the Big East Conference tournament begins on March 8.