Mario Little Breaks Hand

LAWRENCE, Kan. - Kansas junior guard Mario Little suffered a broken left hand in Tuesday morning's practice and will miss two to four weeks, KU men's basketball coach Bill Self announced Tuesday.

Bill Self said Mario Little got his hand caught in a teammate's jersey while changing directions and broke the fourth metacarpal of his non-shooting hand.

"It'll be two weeks before he could do anything realistically," Self said. "His hand caught and pulled his fingers apart and broke it. As of now we'll splint it and hopefully he'll be back full speed real soon."

Little had just returned to practice on Dec. 5 after suffering a stress fracture in his lower left leg that put him on crutches in mid-October. The 6-5, 210 pound, Chicago native has not suited up for any of KU's nine games this season. Little's last basketball action in public was during the Late Night in the Phog scrimmage on Oct. 17. Self said plans are to play Little this season but did not rule out a redshirt in 2008-09.

In Kansas' Canadian exhibition games over the 2008 Labor Day weekend, Little started all three contests and averaged 12.7 points, making 62.5 percent of his field goals. He also pulled down 4.7 rebounds and had a game-high 21 points on 9-of-11 shooting against Ottawa University. Little was ranked the No. 1 junior college player in the country last year while at Chipola (Fla.) College where he averaged 15.2 points, 5.5 rebounds and 2.6 assists.

Kansas, 7-2, plays host to Temple on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. from Allen Fieldhouse. The game will be televised on ESPN2.