Malcolm Lee underwent successful surgery on his left knee Tuesday morning, a procedure that was expected after the UCLA junior guard suffered an injury to the knee on March 5.
Coach Ben Howland, who shared the news with reporters on Tuesday in his final press conference of the season, said that a small tear to the meniscus was fixed and a piece of cartilage was removed during the surgery.
Lee hurt his knee during UCLA’s regular-season finale at Washington State but chose to continue playing without surgery, even logging 39 minutes on the court in UCLA’s season-ending loss to Florida.
Howland said that it would take “between a month to two months, max” before Lee is back to full strength.
Lee’s injury should not affect his NBA draft status should he decide to declare, according to Howland.
“He’s going to be 100% fine,” Howland assured.
Texas-sized addition to the schedule
Save for the Maui Invitational, little had been revealed about UCLA’s 2011 nonconference schedule until Howland divulged Tuesday one date on the calendar: a home matchup against Texas.
Of course, the home location of the game is still up in the air — Howland said that he expects UCLA’s 2011-12 home schedule to be resolved in the “near future” — but the Longhorns and Bruins should provide one of the country’s premier nonconference matchups since both are projected to be ranked teams at the start of the season.
Texas, ranked in the top three at one point this year, expects to continue the success with freshman Tristan Thompson and sophomore Jordan Hamilton returning. Both of the highly touted pro prospects recently said to media outlets that they would not enter the NBA draft this year. The website DraftExpress.com has both Thompson and Hamilton in the first round of its latest mock draft.
The Longhorns were the No. 4 seed in the West Region of the 2010 NCAA Tournament, but fell to No. 5 Arizona in the third round on Sunday.
Summer trimming
A lot was made of freshman center Joshua Smith’s weight — officially 305 pounds — throughout the year. Howland said that he’s looking for that number to drop over the summer, but instead of a weight he has a different target number for Smith: 12 percent body fat.
The target came without revealing the percent body fat Smith currently sits at.
With reports from Eli Smukler, Bruin Sports senior staff.