Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Illinois freshman guard to miss summer trip with stress fracture in leg

John Groce

John Groce

AP

Summer trips are supposed to, among many things, help a team get a head start on establishing the on-court chemistry needed to have a successful season. With that being the case, a player missing out due to injury isn’t a good way to get things going. That’s what Illinois will have to deal with on its trip to Europe next month as guard Jalen Coleman-Lands will have to sit out due to a stress fracture in his lower left leg.

The program announced the news in a press release Friday morning.

“After experiencing pain in his left leg, Jalen was diagnosed with a stress fracture,” Illinois head coach John Groce said in the release. “His health is our number one priority, so we are holding him out of all on-court activities indefinitely. We will re-evaluate his status heading into fall preseason training.”

The four-star guard is expected to give the Fighting Illini additional scoring to supplement the efforts of Malcolm Hill and Kendrick Nunn, with point guard Tracy Abrams returning after missing all of last season with a torn ACL. The time in the Netherlands, Belgium and France will be valuable for Illinois as they look to account for the loss of leading scorer and rebounder Rayvonte Rice, who averaged 16.5 points and 6.5 rebounds per game in 2014-15.