ST. LOUIS - When Michael Porter Jr. exited Missouri's season opener against Iowa State in November with discomfort in his back that would require surgery, Cuonzo Martin assumed he would have to finish the year without the five-star recruit and future NBA Draft selection.
The Missouri coach hasn't been wrong about much in his first season in Columbia, and the Tigers did finish the regular season without Porter Jr. But he was wrong about this.
Martin confirmed Wednesday that Porter Jr. is "prepared to play" in today's Southeastern Conference second round game against Georgia at 2:30 p.m. on SEC Network. The Bulldogs beat Vanderbilt 78-62 in the opening game of the tournament Wednesday night.
"I just looked at it as he wasn't coming back," Martin said. "And it's not something he said. You've got to respect the space of a player going through something like that and my focus at the time was the players on the floor.
"That's what helps me, and I just assumed he wasn't coming back. Not that he said he wasn't, I just assumed he wasn't because I had to focus on the task at hand."
But Porter Jr. approached Martin on Tuesday, said he was ready to go, and Martin welcomed him back with a fist bump. Porter Jr. will not start, but Martin also did not put a cap on his role or his minutes, and said he and Porter Jr. would judge the flow of the game and adapt accordingly.
Martin said he did not think Porter Jr. is at any risk of re-injury.
The timing couldn't be better for Missouri (20-11, 10-8 SEC). Cullen VanLeer left Saturday's game against Arkansas with an ACL injury and Jordan Geist did not participate in Wednesday's shoot-around due to illness. Martin said he expects Geist to be healthy for today's game, but Porter Jr.'s return gives the team an eighth scholarship player and nine healthy bodies.
And with the tournament in St. Louis, a fan base that desperately wanted to see the area's next basketball star ascend to the NBA from Columbia will get another look at Porter Jr., a little more than four months since he took the floor against Kansas in the Sprint Center on the other side of the state.
"What Cuonzo is doing right now to get them to defend, to get them to play together, to get them to make extra passes and all the stuff they're doing, right now they're playing well," Kentucky head coach John Calipari said on Monday's teleconference. "You add Porter to that, all of a sudden they become very, very dangerous."
The Wildcats await the winner of today's game Friday at 2 p.m. on ESPN.
Kyrie Irving's return to Duke as a freshman is the closest to the situation Missouri currently finds itself in, but Irving played eight regular season games and close to 232 minutes in 2010 before injuring his toe and returning for the 2011 NCAA Tournament. Porter Jr. played two minutes, had surgery on a more serious injury and is not a 6-foot-2, 180-pound guard. The Tigers are in uncharted waters.
Still, Martin did not think Porter Jr.'s return would disrupt the chemistry of a team that got to 20 wins and the No. 5 seed in the conference tournament without him.
"No problem at all, because he's a part of the team," Martin said. "He's a part of the team. You owe it to him. Whatever happens, I'm OK with it. If it doesn't work out, it worked out in my book because I made a decision we're rolling.
"It's not as if he's coming in as just a rebounder or just a defensive stopper. He's a guy that has a presence on the floor, so it helps other guys around him when you have another guy that can make a play and score the ball."