Elijah Johnson undergoes offseason knee surgery

By Gary Bedore     Apr 22, 2012

Kansas University senior-to-be Elijah Johnson had arthroscopic surgery on his left knee last week, coach Bill Self said in a phone interview from the recruiting trail on Saturday night.

Johnson, a 6-4, 195-pound combo guard from Las Vegas, will return to the court in six to eight weeks, Self indicated.

“The reason we’re not going to bring him back sooner is there’s no reason to rush it,” Self said, explaining, “it was a scope. There was some swelling. When you have floating particles, they need to get in there and clean it up. By the middle of June he should be close to 100 percent. He should be good to go in June. This will not set him back at all.”

Johnson in the interim will “rehab it, get it stronger,” Self said of the knee.

Johnson — he averaged 10.2 points, 3.5 assists and 3.2 rebounds a game last season — had some swelling during the NCAA tournament.

“He played on it. It was something that didn’t bother him,” Self said of Johnson’s play. “But he couldn’t last another year without getting it cleaned up. We did an MRI after the season that told us it needed to be cleaned up.”

Hinson’s staff taking shape: Former KU director of basketball operations Barry Hinson has announced the hiring of two members to his Southern Illinois University coaching staff.

They are: Tom Hankins, who spent the past 15 seasons as an assistant at Oral Roberts, and Terrance McGee, assistant the past two years at Grand Valley State in Michigan. Hankins worked for Hinson at Oral Roberts in 1997-99.

New recruiting name: Przemek Karnowski, a 7-foot-1, 280-pound center from Poland, is reportedly considering Gonzaga, Marquette, Duke, Kansas and Pac-12 schools, dukehoopblog.com reports. Karnowski helped lead Poland to the silver medal at the U-17 World Championships in Germany. He will be a freshman next season.

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