photo by: AP Photo/Gareth Patterson

Arkansas guard Boogie Fland (2) and head coach John Calipari, right, talk between plays during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Baylor, Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024, in Dallas.

The Arkansas men’s basketball team, limited to seven players of late as it made a charge toward the NCAA Tournament down the home stretch of its season, is slated to get one of its leading scorers back when it plays Kansas on Thursday, while another continues to miss time due to injury.

Freshman guard Boogie Fland underwent surgery on his right thumb on Jan. 22, and at the time multiple reports suggested he would be out for the season. However, he returned to practice on Sunday.

Arkansas coach John Calipari told reporters after the Razorbacks got paired with KU that he told his team in light of Fland’s return to action, “It’s not really changing anybody’s role or what’s going on. We just have an eighth man.”

“The greatest piece of it was Boogie saying to me, ‘I don’t want to screw them up. I just want to help,'” Calipari said. “And I said, ‘Well, you may play 10 to 15 minutes, but so what.’ He said, ‘I’d be good.’ And I said, ‘We may need you more. I don’t know.'”

The exact nature of Fland’s role on Thursday remains to be determined, but when he was playing for Arkansas he was the team’s top scorer at 15.1 points per game, albeit on an average of 13 shots. The 6-foot-2 guard from the Bronx, New York, was a McDonald’s All-American and did not miss a beat adapting to the collegiate level. In his very first action he scored 22 points with five assists and six steals in a charity exhibition against KU on Oct. 25.

Fland suffered his injury in the third of the Razorbacks’ five losses to open SEC play, trying to play through it in the following two, before he got surgery and Arkansas turned its season around and earned a No. 10 seed in the tournament.

It was a big blow to a team that had already dealt with two of its transfers, guard Johnell Davis (Florida Atlantic) and forward Jonas Aidoo (Tennessee) struggling to settle in early in the year due to an offseason wrist injury and foot surgery, respectively.

“The biggest thing you can’t plan for is injuries,” Calipari said. “The stuff that happened to Jonas, where he was out four months, where he had to have an operation. The stuff that happened to Nelly, falling out of a golf cart, being out that amount of time? And then all of a sudden Adou (Thiero), and then all of a sudden Boogie. And your two leading scorers are out. You can’t predict all that stuff.”

Indeed, while Fland was already out, Arkansas lost its other top scorer, Thiero. The junior forward, who followed Calipari from Kentucky and had once set career highs in points and rebounds in a game against KU at the Champions Classic in November 2023, had averaged 15.6 points and 6.0 boards in 26 games of action.

Then he hyperextended his knee in a game against Missouri on Feb. 22, and Calipari said on Sunday that he won’t make his return during the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament.

“Not this week,” he said. “Like, he didn’t practice today. But not this week. But if we advance, we’ll see.”

In the absence of Thiero, the primary beneficiary in terms of minutes has been Trevon Brazile, Arkansas’ main holdover from the pre-Calipari era (though he had torn his ACL the year the Razorbacks beat KU in the NCAA Tournament). Brazile, a 6-foot-10, 230-pound forward, has scored in double digits in four straight games compared to four total the rest of the season, and three of those recent performances have been double-doubles.

Even with their injuries, the Razorbacks closed the season by winning six of eight games — though Calipari said he still had some nerves on Selection Sunday as Arkansas was one of the final teams revealed in this year’s bracket, after several teams the Razorbacks had beaten managed to get in.

“All of a sudden, you’re like, ‘Wait a minute, what is happening here?'” he said. “But like I said, this is like my old days. I’m happy we’re in. Let’s go play.”

Arkansas will meet KU at 6:10 p.m. Central Time on Thursday in Providence, Rhode Island. Calipari acknowledged that the Jayhawks will look different than the team the Razorbacks saw in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in an exhibition game on Oct. 25.

“The big kid didn’t play,” Calipari said of KU center Hunter Dickinson, who had sprained his foot in late October. “He did not play here. So they’re a different team with him. We’re going to have to have a heck of a game. We’re going to have to play well.”

The Jayhawks were also missing Rylan Griffen, due to a hip flexor, and Shakeel Moore, due to his fractured ankle in the offseason. Recurring soreness from that injury continues to limit Moore’s availability five months later, though he did dress to play and warmed up for KU’s Big 12 tournament game against Arizona last Thursday.

photo by: AP Photo/Sam Craft

Arkansas forward Adou Thiero, right, drives the lane against Texas A&M guard Hayden Hefner, left, during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025, in College Station, Texas.

photo by: AP Photo/Charlie Riedel

Arkansas guard Boogie Fland shoots during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against Illinois, Thursday, Nov. 28, 2024, in Kansas City, Mo.