Syracuse forward Donnie Freeman’s playing status is in question ahead of Players Era Festival

Update at 4:15 p.m.: Syracuse sophomore forward Donnie Freeman has been ruled out of playing in this week’s Players Era Festival. Freeman’s injury will be reevaluated when the team returns to Syracuse.

Las Vegas - Donnie Freeman’s playing status is unclear for the Players Era Festival. The Syracuse forward traveled to Las Vegas from Syracuse in a walking boot.

Questions concerning Freeman and a potential injury surfaced two days ago.

About dinner time in Syracuse on Saturday, the Syracuse men’s basketball account tweeted photos of the team touching down in Las Vegas, site of this week’s Players Era Festival.

In a photo that was soon deleted, Freeman was seen walking down the stairs of a chartered plane wearing a medical walking boot on his right foot.

An SU spokesman, responding a day later to a question about Freeman’s status, said there was “nothing to report at this time.”

SU has offered no official word about Freeman from the time the photo appeared on Twitter until hours before Monday’s tipoff against Houston here in the Players Era Festival.

The ACC requires its teams to report the injury status of players the day before a game, no later than 8 p.m. local time (in this case, Pacific Time). But those rules only apply to conference games.

If Freeman does not play this week, his absence would be a major blow for the Orange, which plays national brands Houston and Kansas in consecutive games Monday and Tuesday and another high-major opponent on either Wednesday or Thursday. Syracuse, too, will play Tennessee in the JMA Wireless Dome next week in the ACC/SEC Challenge.

Freeman, through four games, is SU’s leading scorer (17.8 points per game) and second-leading rebounder (5.2) behind William Kyle. He has been the Orange men’s best free throw shooter and is a cornerstone on which SU built its off-season roster.

The sophomore forward sustained a Jones fracture to the fifth metatarsal on his right foot last winter. The injury eventually required surgery and limited Freeman to 14 games before he shut down for the rest of the season. Foot fractures can take as long as a year to fully heal, but Freeman has been cleared to fully practice for months.

It’s unclear whether Freeman has an injury related to his previous foot fracture or whether something else necessitates wearing a boot.

Syracuse plays Houston at 6 p.m. Eastern Time Monday in the first of three games in the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas. It plays Kansas at 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday and another game, yet to be determined, on either Wednesday or Thursday.

The Orange is expected to have Tyler Betsey at its disposal for Monday’s game. Betsey sat out SU’s previous game against Monmouth with an injury.