Louisville will be without prized freshman guard Mikel Brown Jr. for Thursday's first-round NCAA Tournament game against 11-seed South Florida, the school confirmed Wednesday. His availability for a potential second-round appearance remains unclear, with the program citing mixed signals about his recovery timeline.

Brown, who has missed four straight games with a recurring back injury, said a return Saturday is possible but uncertain.

"There's a possibility," Brown said. "I don't know how, I don't know if it's completely 100%. Like I said, man, this thing is just taking its slow, precious time and I'm leaning on my medical staff every single day to do any type of treatment, anything to try to get me back healthy."

Coach Pat Kelsey declined to address Brown's status beyond Thursday's game. However, the school stated Brown would remain sidelined "the rest of this week should the Cardinals advance to the Round of 32."

The projected NBA lottery pick has been one of college basketball's most electric freshmen when healthy, averaging 18.2 points and 4.7 assists. His standout performances include a 45-point, 10-three-pointer performance against NC State and back-to-back 29-point outings versus Baylor and SMU.

"I've never been trained to go half-speed in any type of shape or form in anything that I do. And that's the only speed I can go at right now," Brown said.

Former Kennesaw State transfer Adrian Wooley has filled in capably as a starter, averaging 11.0 points across 14 starts and scoring at least 14 points in three of his last five appearances.

Louisville faces South Florida on Thursday as the No. 6 seed. A victory would set up a second-round matchup against the winner of Michigan State and North Dakota State.