Rather than play limited minutes for the Gators on a hobbled right leg, guard Eli Carter will sit out the remainder of the season and earn a medical redshirt, according to SNY.tv.
The junior suffered a broken leg while playing for Rutgers on Feb. 16 against DePaul.
Although he has returned to the court in a limited capacity this season, he is still not fully healthy.
Carter did not see any action on the court in Monday’s loss to Connecticut and has averaged fewer than eight minutes in seven games.
Walk-ons Billy Donovan and Lexx Edwards are the only other healthy players to have averaged less time on the court than Carter.
The transfer from Rutgers, who earned a NCAA waiver to play for the Gators this season rather than being forced to sit out a year, was not efficient when he did see playing time.
Carter scored only three points for Florida on 1-of-14 shooting, including 1 of 9 from three-point range. He recorded as many turnovers as he did points.
Coach Billy Donovan did not confirm Carter’s medical redshirt, but on Sunday he hinted at the idea.
“That’s probably something that’s going to happen,” Donovan said.
“But right now, I think he’s just trying to see — can he get better? But as I said before, we’re not going to waste a year just to have him be a guy that’s going to spot somebody to give him a breather. I think he’s done too much in his career. We owe it to him to get him fully healthy and healed and ready to play.”
Turbulent Gators: Delta Airlines is conducting an internal investigation after its partner, ExpressJet, swapped the Florida basketball team’s mechanically dysfunctional charter plane for the commercial Delta flight 5059 aircraft in order for the Gators to make their Monday night game against UConn.
While Billy Donovan and his team left on time, the unscheduled engine maintenance on the remaining aircraft forced Delta to cancel flight 5059, which left 50 customers stuck in Gainesville.
In a statement, Delta announced it expected the work on the aircraft to be completed quickly, which is why it swapped the planes.
Passengers were forced to find other flights out of Tampa, Orlando or Jacksonville because of the inconvenience, according to the Gainesville Sun.
One person missed a funeral as a result.
Bahamas Bound: The Battle 4 Atlantis tournament announced Florida would be one of the eight teams participating in its 2014 Thanksgiving weekend tournament in Paradise Island, Bahamas.
The lineup also includes heavyweights North Carolina, UCLA, Georgetown, Wisconsin, Butler, Oklahoma and Alabama-Birmingham.
Mike Hill, UF’s executive associate athletic director for external affairs, said he jumped at the chance to join the tournament when the opportunity arose.
“The organizers of the event approached us a couple years ago to gauge our interest and obviously it was a pretty short discussion, especially when we heard about the other participants,” Hill said. “That’s a big-time field and we felt like we needed to be a part of that.”
Follow Jonathan Czupryn on Twitter @jczupryn.
Eli Carter dribbles the ball during Florida’s 77-69 win against North Florida on Nov. 1 in the O’Connell Center. Carter plans to receive a medical redshirt this season.
