The resumption of Horizon League is play right around the corner and Green Bay will reportedly be without a big piece of their big man rotation when it resumes.

Redshirt freshman Amari Jedkins will be out four to six weeks due to a foot injury according to Scott Venci of the Green Bay Press Gazette.

According to Venci, the 6’7” big man was seen wearing a walking boot at practice on Tuesday and is suffering from a stress reaction.

Jedkins, one of just three holdovers from last year’s squad, has played meaningful minutes this season in his first year of game action after sitting out last season.  After playing sparingly in Green Bay’s first two games of the year, he averaged 6.8 points and 3.4 rebounds per game on an efficient 61.5% shooting from the floor in 22.0 minutes per game over the Phoenix next five games which included wins over Montana State and St. Thomas and close losses to Valparaiso, UC-Riverside, and Purdue Fort Wayne.

Since that stretch, his productivity and playing time have dwindled to where ultimately he did not play a minute in the thrilling road victory over UIC and only played the final 5 minutes of a blowout loss at Oklahoma this past Saturday. 

“It’s disappointing because he’s a great energy guy,” head coach Sundance Wicks told the newspaper. “His motor runs high. You need that in a season. It’s a long season, and you need the energy guys to be the energy guys.”

“I’m glad they caught it early. It’s not a stress fracture, it’s a stress reaction. He will have time and that thing can heal. But it’s going to hurt us a little bit, just because we don’t have depth at that 5 spot anyways. So, we are going to have to solve some more problems.” 

Rich Byhre and true freshman Jacob Antchak are the remaining options at the five spot for Green Bay with Marcus Hall, Elijah Jones, and Will Eames also likely needing to handle some minutes there in Jedkins absence.  They have already been doing so for the most part as the Phoenix have been playing more three or even four guard lineups lately with the return of Clarence Cummings to the rotation as well as the emergence of David Douglas, which adds some flexibility.

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