Kennedy Meeks Injury: Updates on UNC Star's Knee and Return

The North Carolina players, coaches and fanbase were given a scare on Saturday evening as Kennedy Meeks had to leave the team's NCAA tournament round-of-32 game against Arkansas with a knee injury. However, he will start Thursday night in the Tar Heels' Sweet 16 contest vs. Wisconsin.

Continue for updates.

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Meeks Will Start vs. Wisconsin

Thursday, March 26

Carolina basketball announced that Meeks will start vs. Wisconsin Thursday night.

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Meeks Practices on Wednesday

Wednesday, March 25

CNN's Rachel Nichols provided a brief clip on Instagram of Meeks practicing:

Nichols tweeted more details on his status: "UNC's Roy Williams says Kennedy Meeks (knee) will be a gametime decision; Meeks tells me he thinks by tomorrow he'll feel well enough to go."

According to InsideCarolina, Meeks' response to whether he will play was, "Hopefully."

On Tuesday, North Carolina provided an update on Meeks, stating he went through the non-contact portion of practice, per Jeff Borzello of ESPN.com:

Meeks did not practice on Monday.

Head coach Roy Williams commented on his outlook, per Bret Strelow of The Fayetteville Observer:

"

They're not completely ruling him out, and they're not saying that he can play. Let me say it that way - I don't think we'll have him, but we'll just have to wait and see.

I don’t expect that we’ll know anything, unless something really bad came out, for the next couple days. If he doesn’t practice (Monday), he could still play. If he doesn’t practice Wednesday, it’d be hard to play on Thursday.

It feels a lot better than it did after the game, I know that. I think anything else would be pure conjecture and a guesstimate.

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On March 21, Meeks, who went down to injury in the second half of North Carolina's 87-78 victory over Arkansas and was visibly in pain before leaving the court, couldn't return to the game, per Carolina Basketball on Twitter.  

And things didn't look good, as Doug Gottlieb of CBS Sports read Meeks' lips during the injury:

"

Meeks seemed to say “It Popped” no? #UNC

— Doug Gottlieb (@GottliebShow) March 22, 2015"

Rob Dauster of CollegeBasketballTalk also believed Meeks said, "It popped." 

Meeks came into the contest averaging 11.6 points and 7.5 rebounds per game and had nine points and four rebounds on Saturday night.