UConn scoring leader A.J. Price has torn ACL, needs surgery

HARTFORD, Conn.—Connecticut junior guard A.J. Price has a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee and will need surgery, team officials said Saturday.

Price led the Huskies this season with an average of 14.9 points per game and a team-leading 191 assists. He was injured midway through the first half of Connecticut's 70-69 overtime loss to San Diego on Friday.

He is expected to undergo surgery near the end of next week, said Jeffrey Anderson, the team's director of sports medicine.

Price will need about six months to recover, but likely will not miss any of next season, Anderson said.

Price landed awkwardly on his knee while driving to the basket with 9:39 to play in the first half of Friday's game. He was carried off the floor, examined on the bench and then helped to the locker room for more tests.

He briefly returned to the bench on crutches and with a giant ice pack strapped to his knee, but was not around for the start of the second half and said afterward it was "extremely difficult" to watch.

"I felt everything go wrong in my knee and I took the pressure off of it as fast as I could," Price said Friday.

The injury is another chapter of Price's rocky history at UConn.

He missed what would have been his freshman season after suffering a brain hemorrhage, and later was suspended for another season after involvement in the theft of four laptop computers.

But with those woes behind, UConn was touting Price as an All-America candidate this season.

"To go down in an NCAA tournament game, I feel really badly for him," Calhoun said after Friday's injury.