Romain Martin jogged alone.

The freshman guard was away from the rest of the team during some of Tuesday’s practice at Lantz Arena.

Martin stopped occasionally to glance back at practice, listening to certain instructions from head coach Mike Miller or talking to one of his teammates.

Martin jogging and not practicing with the team wasn’t a form of punishment.

It was just a form of keeping him active while he deals with sprained ligaments in his right hand. Martin suffered the sprained ligaments in Saturday’s game at Loyola of Chicago.

Martin said he suffered the sprained ligaments damage with about seven minutes to play in Eastern’s 66-43 loss.

Martin said he was screened, and while trying to fight through the screen, his hand stuck in his opponent’s jersey and it bent backwards.

Martin wore a dark blue brace on his right hand and did not participate in any offensive drills Tuesday.

He practiced Wednesday, participating in offensive drills with his right hand heavily taped and the brace off.

“Right now it hurts, but it doesn’t hurt to the point where I can’t play or can’t move it,” Martin said Tuesday. “I think if I can get it loose and heat it up, it’ll be all right.”

Martin said that men’s basketball trainer Ryan Collins told him the injury usually takes two to three weeks to heal. But Martin doesn’t have two to three weeks to heal.

He has only until tonight at Jacksonville State to see how well his non-shooting hand has recovered before Eastern (9-19, 5-13 Ohio Valley Conference) plays at JSU (8-20, 6-12) in a game the Panthers must win to keep their OVC Tournament chances alive.

The left-handed shooting freshman guard from Minneapolis and the Panthers’ leading scorer (14.8 points per game) heading into tonight’s game at Jacksonville State, hadn’t shot a ball since Saturday’s game at Loyola of Chicago, where the injury happened, before Wednesday’s practice.

Martin said he has been icing it, as well as applying heat to the hand in order to get it ready for tonight’s game at Jacksonville State.

After tonight’s game at JSU, Eastern plays Saturday at Samford in its final regular season game.

The tenth-place Panthers have a slim chance of making the OVC Tournament and need to win these final two games to even have a chance.

Having their leading scorer’s playing status for these two games undetermined before the team left Wednesday for Alabama is the situation Miller is looking at.

“It may get better as we go,” Miller said. “We’ll just kind of address it as we go.”

Miller declined to further elaborate about Martin’s hand.

Martin’s roommate and fellow left-handed teammate Billy Parrish said the biggest adjustment’s in terms of shooting is getting his shot off quick after catching the ball.

Sophomore point guard Mike Robinson said if Martin is limited, Eastern will have to rely on increased bench production.

“Whoever that is, they’re going to have to step up Thursday,” he said.

Martin didn’t play in Eastern’s last game against Samford because of a suspension he served after being ejected against JSU for fighting. Now, he might be limited in his scoring role for the Panthers’ final two games against those teams.

But Robinson said he isn’t overtly worried about Martin not playing.

“Ro, he loves to play basketball,” he said. “That’s just the main thing. It’s not a mindset of toughness or all that. I hope he plays through it and I hope he plays well through it. He knows he needs to help our team out.”

Freshman Guard Romain Martin has his wrist looked at by athletic trainer Ryan Collins during Saturday’s game against Loyola of Chicago. Martin tore a ligament in his right wrist. Martin plans to play in tonight’s game against Jacksonville State, even thou

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