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Kansas will be without Joel Embiid on Sunday vs. Stanford

Joel Embiid

On Friday, Kansas, the No. 2 seed in the South Region, got past upset-minded Eastern Kentucky, 80-69, in the Round of 64. For the Jayhawks, it was the fifth straight game playing without freshman center Joel Embiid, who is dealing with a back injury.

When KU takes the floor in St. Louis on Sunday against No. 10 Stanford, Embiid will miss a sixth consecutive game, according to a report from Jeff Goodman of ESPN. Entering the NCAA tournament, it was unlikely that Embiid would be able to go during the first weekend, and Kansas head coach Bill Self made that official on Saturday afternoon.

Self also told Goodman that Embiid would be questionable to appear in the Sweet 16, if the Jayhawks can get past the Cardinal on Sunday.

Even without Embiid in the lineup, KU still has a good frontline with second leading scorer Perry Ellis while Tarik Black and Jamari Traylor have both stepped up in recent games, such as Traylor’s 17 points and 14 rebounds against Eastern Kentucky. Despite missing Embiid’s 2.6 blocks per game, the Jayhawks were able to reject seven of the Colonels’ attempts on Friday.

Clearly, they will go up against a much better team on Sunday. The attention might be on Kansas’ missing piece inside, but the Jayhawks will need to focus in on the Cardinal’s talented backcourt of Chasson Randle and Anthony Brown. Both of them played every minute of Thursday’s win over New Mexico, scoring 33 of Stanford’s 58 points off 10-of-23 (6-of-9 from three) shooting.

The Stanford-Kansas Round of 32 matchup is scheduled to tip at 12:15 p.m. on Sunday afternoon.

Follow @terrence_payne